


Salt

by rivai-lution (stethoscopesandsigs)



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Merpeople, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, Merboy AU, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sensuality, Sexual Content, mermaid au, merman au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-12
Updated: 2014-04-28
Packaged: 2018-01-15 12:51:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 30,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1305511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stethoscopesandsigs/pseuds/rivai-lution
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Erwin Smith was willing to give up his life, so he didn't really mind losing his arm. Losing his mind, however, was more than he could possibly bear. His resulting isolation was crafted, deliberate, and meant to be permanent. </p><p>He never could have planned for the voiceless boy that the storm washed ashore...even if he wasn't quite convinced the boy was real.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. All Things Lost, Tossed Aside, and Forgotten

**Author's Note:**

> This is a significant departure from my usual style, but I hope that you guys still enjoy! 
> 
> Comments and kudos are deeply appreciated.

  


fic cover by [35grams](http://35grams.tumblr.com/).

“Erwin,” she started, setting down her pen, folding her hands, and focusing the whole of her attention on him. Erwin _hated_ it when she did this. It always meant she wanted to impart something that she was well aware he didn’t care to hear, which would be followed by the both of them engaging in the most polite conversational version of “Fuck, no,” for the remainder of his appointment, which would then end in her saying, “Just think about it, Erwin,” and him quite emptily promising to do so. He sighed loudly, because his arm — his _stump_ — itched, because he had a million things to finish today, because he had to travel three hours just to get to the god damned VA Hospital where he was shuffled through like a number and told, again and again, that he would simply have to wait. He hated traveling after dark, and here she was, his doctor, his _therapist_ , pressing her lips into a thin line and peering at him with something almost approximating exasperation. Not quite exasperation, though, because she was a professional and — Erwin could admit this — good at her job. It wasn’t her fault that he was such a terrible client. 

“I’m just…not convinced that this level of isolation is what’s best for you.” 

And there it was. He hadn’t been able to guess her exact phrasing, but he’d known what she would say. He nodded with a serious look, pretended to give it consideration, opened his mouth to speak, closed it again, licked his lips, looked off to the side, and finally, just as the silence between them was stretching dangerously close to one hundred and twenty-two seconds, the approximate time where she would open her mouth to clarify, continue, or urge him to say what he was thinking, Erwin replied simply, “Well, doc, I’m not convinced that you have any idea what’s best for me.” And then he smiled.

“With all due respect, Erwin, are you convinced that you do?”

Erwin kept his smile, but stood, nodded to her, and walked toward the door.

“Erwin, you still have half an hour. Why don’t you come back and discuss this with me further?”

“Good day, doc.” 

He ignored her after that, flipped the little switch in his head that let him sink into the white noise of his own thoughts. The receptionist might have tried to flag him down to set his next appointment, but he wasn’t interested in appointments. His prosthesis was fit, now, and he had no intention of making the ridiculous journey to the VA hospital unless he had to. 

_“It’s a traumatic brain injury…a TBI. It’s quite common in veterans coming home from the war.”_

Not that he hadn’t assumed. The way his brother looked at him after he came home, the things Mike had said…neither of them had admitted it, really, they hadn’t really specified outright that he was different, a changed man, but he could tell that’s what they were thinking. 

_“You just need to get back in the swing of things, buddy,”_ Mike had said, slapping his back lightly. Erwin had just stared forward, blank and aimless. Somewhere, he knew that Mike was his friend, but right now he couldn’t help wanting him to die. He wanted everyone that he knew, or better yet, everyone who had ever known that he existed, to shrivel up and die on the spot, which was horrible, made him a horrible person and he knew that too, but the knowledge of his shortcomings wasn’t enough to make him seek to change them. In reality, he was the one who should drop dead, but somehow, against his better judgment, he just kept living. 

Erwin felt himself jostled. He was at the train station, staring at the time table, but he couldn’t remember which train would take him to the coast, to the ferry, so he stared on aimlessly at the timetable and replayed the doctor’s words again. 

_“The damage is in your cerebral cortex. The symptoms you’ve been experiencing, the flattened affect, the inability to connect to those around you or to your circumstances, the memory loss…it’s all a part of this. Unfortunately, the effects of TBI can be very far-reaching, Mr. Smith. As your doctor, I can’t recommend you maintain your current conditions. I realize that solitude is…more comfortable. But…”_

Erwin had shut him out then, just as he shut him out now. He thought, concentrated, tried to recall exactly how to get home. The ocean was to the East, this was the East coast, if he could see a map…and then he remembered, in his pocket, a piece on lined paper covered in symbols that no one else could understand. Symbols that were unique to him. The symbols he used so that no one would ever realize how insane he actually was. Eastern Midline, the symbols told him. Left. Twenty five steps. One hundred and eighty degree turn, Coastal Rail line. Five stops. One hundred fifty-three steps. Atlantic Star Ferry. Wildgrass Island. Due East, one half mile. Quiet Harbor, dock twelve, slot nineteen. The Maria. 

There were more notes as well. Milk. Bread. Peanut butter. Jelly. Gasoline. Coffee. Sugar. Toilet paper. 

It’s the god damned VA, Erwin, they can’t work any miracles.

He stared at his notes, stared until someone else jostled into his prosthetic arm, sending pain that he knew to be a phantom sensation all through the missing limb. Phantom. As though that made it any less real. Erwin didn’t yell, didn’t even turn to see who’d hit him. It was a train station. It was busy. If he started yelling, he might never stop. 

_Eastern Midline_. He had five minutes. He walked through the train station, found his platform and waited, dutifully practicing the subtle shifting of muscles in his left shoulder to open and close the hook that had become his right hand. A child was staring at him, wide-eyed and slack jawed, big empty eyes glued to the metal protrusion, and Erwin wanted to slap the kid but he didn’t make a scene. If he started yelling, he might never stop. Instead he turned up the white noise of his thoughts and slipped comfortably into them, retreating deep behind pale blue eyes. 

***

Erwin always tried to avoid mirrors. 

He’d needed to wash his hand, however, because he’d been in the city, because he’d been in the VA, on the train, because he couldn’t stand the feeling of it anymore, of being covered in things that he couldn’t see, because he felt like his skin was crawling. _Milk. Bread. Peanut butter. Jelly. Gasoline. Coffee. Sugar. Toilet paper._ He recited the list to himself silently as he walked through the door of the grocery, and he waved hello to the proprietor and gave him a hollow, empty, but visually pleasing smile. After the IED, the first thing he’d taught himself was how to smile. It was the best defense he could muster, most days, and it had served him well. He’d made his way to the restroom first, reticent to touch the food he would later eat with hands ( _a_ hand) that had been through so much already today, reticent to touch anything in the pristine little grocery lest he soil the clean white shelves and carefully arranged products with the filth of the city. And in the bathroom, right above the sink, there was a mirror. 

_Don’t look at it_ , he told himself. _Just wash your hand. Don’t look up._

The water here was so hot it was nearly scalding, and his salt-roughened hand began to turn pink under the heat of it. Erwin scrubbed it down with soap, carefully getting under every nail, every wrinkle and crevasse in his skin before rinsing them and starting again. By the time he finished, his hand was bright red and his hook gleamed, just as it always did. Erwin reached for a paper towel, and in that moment, he knew that he must have let his guard down, because he found himself staring into his own eyes, hand frozen in place, dripping on the floor, hook dripping into the sink. His eyes were still the same brilliant cornflower blue that they’d always been, but the purple shadows beneath them stretched long and hollow. He was thin…thinner, anyway, the hollows of his cheeks getting more and more defined. His sandy facial hair was scraggly and rough, a few prominent cuts left over from the last time he’d tried (quite stubbornly) to shave himself with a razor instead of an electric shaver. His hair was dull, looking more like straw than the spun gold it had once been, and he could see veins in his neck, hollows at this collarbones. He was a wreck.

Erwin looked himself in his own empty eyes and asked himself the same empty questions, but nothing changed. Nothing would ever change. Maybe someday he’d have the courage to give himself up to the sea. 

A knock at the door jolted him from his reverie. 

“Smith, you alright in there?” 

He recognized the voice of the shop proprietor…a little high, a little nasally, a thick New England accent. 

“Fine, Mr. Hightower, thanks. I’ll be right out.”

Footsteps drew away and faded, and Erwin sighed, breaking the eye contact he was keeping with himself. He needed to get home.

Milk. Bread. Peanut butter. Jelly. Coffee. Sugar. Toilet paper. He set the items on the counter one at a time, drawing them from the basket with his hand, because he didn’t feel proficient with the hook yet. Mr. Hightower began punching prices into the cash register, but stopped to take a look at Erwin’s new prosthesis. “Ah, this is better, isn’t it?” he asked. Erwin nodded. 

“I suppose it is. It’ll be easier once I get the hang of it.”

“We worry about you, you know. Me and the missus. Out there on the sand bar by yourself, caring for a lighthouse with one hand? I know you were some kinda’ military, Smith, but it’s no good to be out there alone. What if somethin’ happens? We won't know for at least a week…”

“Has my doctor been talking to you?” Erwin said in a voice that he hoped sounded lighthearted, joking.

It worked. Hightower laughed, and Erwin smiled. “I’m fine, Mr. Hightower, but I truly appreciate your concern. I’ll check in next week. As always.”

“Alright, alright,” he said, and then added, “But you should at least let Mrs. Hightower cook for you some night. She makes the best pork chops you ever had, scout’s honor.”

“I’ll keep it in mind,” Erwin replied back with a smile, desperately hoping it would shut the man up. 

“You do that, Smith,” he said. “Twenty-eight ninety-five, sir.”

Erwin handed him two twenties, and as he made change, he went on, “There’s supposed to be a little weather tonight. Nothing major but…you keep dry, alright?”

“Will do,” Erwin said, taking his change and stuffing it into his pocket. 

“Here, take a candy bar, will ya? You’re lookin’ a little thin.”

“Thanks, Mr. Hightower,” Erwin said hurriedly, taking the Hershey’s bar that was offered to him and slipping his hook through the handles of his reusable bag. “See you in a week.”

“See you then, Smith,” the man said, and Erwin didn’t turn around to see his expression or wave…he just wanted to get home. 

***

_“What’s worse, a sickness of the mind, or an affliction of the body?”_

Erwin started up the outboard motor of his boat, using the rudder to steer it in the direction of his island. He could see the lighthouse from here, but couldn’t see his little house. The world was grey, and as his boat puttered across the water, the wind began to blow a little harder. Perhaps Hightower had been right…perhaps they would have weather. He would need to do his checks on the lighthouse as soon as he got home…then he would build a fire. Perhaps he would go to bed early — the day had left him exhausted, after all — and maybe, _maybe_ sleep would come to him tonight. Maybe. 

His brother had sent him a stack of books — these days, hardly anything else interested him — and Erwin planned to start one tonight. But sleep, if it would deign to come, would be even more welcome than the practical, predictable embrace of words. Erwin hummed to himself, hoping to chase away some of the anxiety that was settling in the pit of his guts, but stopped short after awhile when it became clear it wasn’t working. Maybe he wouldn’t even go to his next appointment. Maybe he would only go if his arm wasn’t working or his prosthesis wore out. Now that he had the taste of solitude, he could hardly stand anything else. 

Without warning, Mike was sitting across from him, eyes smiling through shaggy brown hair. “What’s worse,” Mike asked, and Erwin realized he was holding something in his hands, carving at it with a knife.

“Huh?” He asked, eyes moving to a point on the horizon. 

“Had a little trouble in the bathroom, didn’t you, Hoss?” Mike asked, but his tone made it clear that it wasn’t really a question. And then he was gone. The outboard motor hummed and Erwin felt something clawing at his gut, clenching at his throat. 

“Tie up the boat,” he began, listening to the tone and timbre of his own voice, “Step onto the dock. Take supplies inside. Put away milk. Go to lighthouse. Complete checks. Come home. Build fire. Make sandwich. Eat. Read. Sleep.” And this became a mantra which he repeated again and again, all the way to the dock. Still, the anxiety clutched at his chest, rolled about in his stomach, and worst of all, he had no idea why. 

When he reached the dock, he tied up his boat dutifully before vomiting off the side of the dock. It wasn’t seasickness, but sometimes even all of his careful “coping mechanisms”, as they were called, weren’t enough. It had been a long and trying day. Erwin gathered his things and set about his routine, letting himself go numb with the predictability of it. 

***

At first, they’d told him he would come back.

At first, he’d believed them. 

“We can’t do it without you, Smith. You’ve turned enough heads at the Pentagon, you know. They’ll make sure you see the best doctors. You may be out of combat zones, now, but we still need your mind.”

And indeed, it wasn’t until they realized that his mind was damaged just as irreparably as his right arm that they’d slowly stopped asking his opinions and advice. They’d given him a purple heart, and Erwin had smiled through the ceremony, smiled at the reporters, smiled at the soldiers and officers around him. He’d gone back to his brother’s house and hadn’t left his room in two days. He’d spent a lifetime carefully crafting a life of influence, a life that interested him, a life of adventure. He’d been celebrated, awarded, lauded, recognized, promoted, and he’d brown nosed, hobnobbed, charmed, manipulated, strategized, _worked_ …and for what? A failed mission far from home, an explosive, and then it was over. He’d lost his arm, and that he could live with. It had always been a risk he’d been prepared to take. But the attack had taken more from him, still; it had taken the only thing he had not been willing to sacrifice. 

Honorable discharge. Full pension and benefits. Hero. These words had been tossed out and applied to his wounds as though they might do anything at all to relieve the horror of them. Erwin smiled. He smiled and nodded and said, “I understand,” even when he forgot where he was, temporarily, or how to get home. And then, the city had been too much for him, too many people, too much noise, too many lights. So he stayed with his brother in the suburbs…but that was too much, too. Far too much. So he took a job as a lighthouse caretaker on a sandbar too small to support more than one person, and he moved there with books and little else, and learned to live alone, one-armed, and crippled by anxiety. And on days where his medical care required it, he made his way into the city. He hoped that one day he could get by leaving the island less often, but for now he was still dependent on the grocery, on the VA. It was something to work toward anyway.

Despite the concerns of his doctors, Erwin had created and settled into a routine here. It wasn’t much, but it was his, and on the days he was lucky, it kept his demons at bay. Today he was unlucky…very unlucky indeed. As he climbed the lighthouse stairs, he had to pause twice to catch his breath. His physical condition, though not as prime as it once had been, was still up to the task of climbing some stairs. Nevertheless, he found himself plastered against the curving wall, breath coming in heaves and gasps, hook scraping the wall lightly every time he exhaled. The sound of it was so quiet, so deafening. He didn’t cry. He never cried. The moment passed. He continued on. 

At the top, he pulled out his maintenance log and began scribbling in it. The lens was clean, but he cleaned it again, just to be sure. The light was working at full capacity. There hadn’t been enough sun today for it to run on solar power, so he checked the natural gas that gave it power on the grey days. Everything was in order. Erwin’s position here was hardly more than token…most lighthouses were manned infrequently and by the coast guard, but it gave him something to do, day in and day out. And no one came out here. They had no reason to. He made his notes, he cleaned, meaninglessly. He listened to the wind howling around him. 

The last vestiges of light bled away just as the rain began to pound the thick glass panes of the lighthouse. Erwin knew that he should have made his way back to his house before now, but he’d been doing something. He couldn’t quite place what it was, though, that was the trouble. He needed to get home.

A loud crack of thunder broke through to night. Dirt, sun, the screams of his men, dazed, his arm, his arm, “Just leave me,” he’d said, again and again, “I can be replaced.”

But they hadn’t left him. And now he was here, wherever that was. Where was he again? Lighthouse. Yes, East Coast, lighthouse, he needed to get home. The rain was really coming down. His lip was bleeding, he must have bitten it, the blood making him want to retch again but he had nothing left. He was shaking. He needed to get home. It just hadn’t been a good day. Maybe he wouldn’t need to go back to the hospital for a bit. Maybe he just wouldn’t go back. Maybe he could go out in this storm, in his boat, fight the waves. Maybe he would never come back.

Erwin descended from the lighthouse in a daze, his mouth dry as cotton, bitter with traces of blood, his eyes blinking rapidly. He needed water. The moment he unlatched the door, the wind slammed it open. The rain came down at him in sheets, falling so hard that it stung his face, filled his eyes. He opened his mouth, letting the storm fill him up. Lightning flashed all around him and he braced himself, positive that he could prepare himself for the inevitable, but when the thunder boomed around him he was on the ground, pulling his hands up to cover his head instinctually, but in the moment he forgot himself, forgot to compensate for his arm. He felt the pain of the hook hitting the back of his head, the dull point if it connecting with his skull hard enough to make him see stars, and still he was grateful for it. His heart was pounding but he knew where he was. This was not the war. He’d already lost his arm and his mind, there was nothing more that could be taken from him. 

Erwin stood, weaved slowly, laughed. He ran to where the angry waves crashed against the shore, and the lightening flashed, but this time as the thunder crashed about him he screamed right back at it, screamed until he fell to his knees, and he saw himself from the gods-eye, saw a broken man, atrophied and missing a limb and rolling about in the sand, touched by the froth of the surf and laughing like a hyena, and some part of him kept insisting that he was _crazy_ , that he was acting crazy even as he watched himself from above, but he laughed and laughed all the same and yelled into the storm, into the lightning and the thunder, into the crashing waves as the rain came down in sheets, his mouth tasting of blood and the sea. 

He was shivering when he came back to himself, soaked to the bone and coated in a film of sand. He considered laying there, waiting to let the tide come in and take him, but something in him, some strangely insistent part of him made him stand, made him walk to his little house, that something possessed him to wipe himself down in his little mudroom, to strip himself down and rub the sand away. It was the same damn thing, every time, an instinct to live that always seemed to tip the scales between action and inaction, some base, animal part of him that was absolutely intent on survival. It was that part of him that shook up a protein shake in a jar, that sat in front of the kerosene heater until he stopped shivering, that meticulously cleaned and dried the prosthesis, that popped sleeping medication with a shot of whiskey and got himself to bed. Erwin was too tired to fight against his own psyche for his right to die today, was too exhausted to force himself to stop trying, and so he let himself be carried into a deeply drugged and dreamless sleep instead. That was all the energy he seemed to have left. 

***

He needed to sleep for days, probably, weeks perhaps, but he was up with the first grey tones of the dawn regardless. He didn’t have a mirror, but he could feel the exhaustion pulling at his features, could feel it in the thick, metallic fog that rolled through him as he stood, as he went to the kitchen and started up the percolator. His skin was dry, tight, his lips rough and chapped, and slowly, slowly he remembered pieces of the night before, remembered the taste of blood and saltwater, remembered screaming into the rolling storm. 

_“I’m just…not convinced that this level of isolation is what’s best for you.”_

“No shit, doc,” Erwin croaked, his throat wrecked from the breakdown. “No fucking shit.”

He stepped into the shower and washed himself with military efficiency, toweling off before the coffee was even done. “Arm, clothes,” he said, his voice getting a little less craggy now, “Coffee, walk the island.” Today he didn’t have to go anywhere. Today he didn’t have to leave. Yesterday had been bad, but it was the city, the mirror, the overstimulation. Today would be better. Today he wouldn’t into howling into his own personal void. Today would just be another day. Mike was sitting in the rocking chair in front of his fireplace, rocking back and forth, carving at a block of wood in his hands. 

“You gonna make it, boss?” he asked, characteristically easygoing. Erwin looked at him, hollowed out and empty. 

“Go look at your island,” Mike said with a nod. “Who knows what you might find?”

Erwin left him there, rocking back and forth, carving and carving, and he strapped himself into his arm and pulled on his clothing. 

About a foot of sand had blown up against the door, and Erwin had to shove it a bit to get it open. It was always like this after a storm, but he hardly minded. He loved the dawn that came after the storm, loved the driftwood and debris left in the wake of it, loved the process of cleaning his little sandbar of all the trash from the ocean and making it immaculate once again. Today would be easier because he had a purpose, something to keep busy, and manual labor would be easier, now that he had the hook on his arm. He needed to practice grasping and moving, needed to perfect it…cleaning the island today would help. The sun was rising, casting the world in pink, in gold, and Erwin pulled his thick work coat a little tighter around him as the ocean breeze bit at his face. 

He cast his gaze down the beach, his bright blue eyes running over the predictable mix of trash, driftwood, and unidentifiable debris when they landed on something he didn’t quite recognize. And then, he did recognize it, but he hardly believed his eyes. Still, his legs were moving, running through the sand as it slipped beneath his feet like a dream. He pushed harder, moved closer to the surf so that his feet wouldn’t sink so far, so he could move faster. He ran next to the waves, heart pounding, and finally he was there, kneeling over the unmistakable form of a person, a boy, perhaps, though it was difficult to see, he was so crumpled in on himself. Erwin pushed him onto his back, ducked his ear down to see if he was breathing, tried to find his pulse. Erwin tilted the boy’s head back, pinched his nose, and breathed in to his mouth. His pale, slender chest rose almost imperceptibly, and Erwin let it fall again before he repeated the motion. Then he began to press rhythmically on his chest, hoping against hope that somehow, somehow he wasn’t too late. 

As he counted out thirty beats, Erwin surveyed the boy’s appearance. His skin was naked and pale, his lips dark, but he wasn’t bloated or stiff, and there seemed to be a spark of life still in him. He stopped, breathed into his mouth again, and continued his chest compressions. Erwin barely heard himself whispering, “Please, please, please,” over the pounding of his own heart, and then he was practically growling, “Come on, come _on_.” He pressed a little harder with each beat, but nothing seemed to be happening. Just as he could feel his own hope fading, just as something inside him began to yawn open in utter despair, the boy began to sputter, began to cough, seawater pouring out his mouth. 

“Oh thank god, thank god,” Erwin muttered, stripping his coat off and wrapping the boy up in it. He was a bit clumsy, still, but he managed, and a moment later he was lifting that shockingly light body and carrying it toward the house as fast as he could. The boy moaned, coughed and shivered, and Erwin murmured words to him that he hoped were somehow comforting, encouraging. This was something that he knew, something that he understood…a fallen soldier, life threatening injuries, field medicine, he could handle this. He could save him. He pulled the door open and made his way over to the couch, setting the boy there gently. He moved the heater closer to him, but not too close — he remembered being taught in field training that warming someone too quickly could cause far more harm than good. He flipped it on and left just long enough to gather towels and blankets. The boy was breathing, but only just. Erwin decided, or rather, hoped that he would be okay. He _had_ to be okay. With quiet determination, he dried the boy’s shaggy raven-black hair, than began the long process of grasping the boy’s fingers in his hand to warm them. It would have gone faster if he’d had both hands, but for now, this was all that he could do. The room was getting warmer and warmer as he worked, and Erwin began to noticed that the boy’s lips were shifting from purple to a lighter, more natural pink. 

Once the boy’s fingers and arms were warm to the touch he swathed that pale torso in blankets and moved down to the boy’s toes, and for a moment he was struck by how soft they were, how pink. It wouldn’t have occurred to him, except that they looked somehow different from the rest of the boy’s body…like they’d never been used. Erwin shook the observation away and pressed his hand to the boy’s toes, his feet, his ankles, waiting patiently as they became warm and pink. He moved up the boy’s legs, once again noticing that they were different, somehow…he continued pressing warmth into them as he tried to place it, and a moment later it struck him. He pulled down the blanket enough to see the boy’s torso again, confirming his suspicion — though it was rather fine and sparse, the boy had hair on his arms, even a bit on his chest…but none at all on his legs. Maybe it was completely irrelevant, but Erwin filed that information away for later just in case it wasn’t. As he moved up the boy’s thighs, his gaze fell across on the space between the boy’s legs. Erwin stopped, turned away, and then turned back. He stared a moment, felt wildly embarrassed, and looked away again, cheeks burning. 

It wasn’t anything that he hadn’t seen before, just something he’d not seen…on a boy. He thought about the flat plane of the boy’s chest, looked at his face to try and determine his age, but he was strangely…ageless. Erwin shook his head, told himself to attend to the task at hand. He’d just rescued this person from the ocean — trying to decipher their sex was inappropriate. After ensuring that the boy’s legs were sufficiently warmed, he wrapped him up and moved to the kitchen to warm up some broth on the hot plate while he considered his options. Undoubtedly, he should take the boy to the hospital. If he could get him into town, surely the Hightowers or someone would drive them to the hospital. But what then? Would he stay at the hospital with him? Would he file a police report? Erwin looked down at his hand and realized that he was shaking like a leaf. It was the adrenaline, surely, but when he thought about going into town…

Ignoring his, well, whatever had happened to him last night would be preferable to considering it, but Erwin felt as though he was treading on thin ice in a way he couldn’t quite put words to. Some part of him was screaming _take him to the hospital, you selfish bastard_ , but when he thought about it, he felt as though his throat might close, and how would he get either of them to the mainland if he passed out halfway across the bay? Swallowing thickly, he pulled a pot out and set in on the hot plate, opened a can of chicken broth and dumped it in. Maybe he could bring the boy around and then ask him what he wanted to do. Maybe he could radio the coast guard. He knew that he was simply making excuses to avoid seeing people, but knowing that wasn’t going to stop him. Human beings were incredible creatures, capable of rationalizing anything that they wanted to, and Erwin knew himself to be no exception.

Thoughts sped through his mind at a rate he couldn’t help, flashes of possibilities mixed with the present and the past, the anxiety of it all gripping at him like an icy fist. He was simultaneously wracked with guilt over questioning whether or not to take the boy to the hospital and furious with himself for even having such an inner debate, but it couldn’t be helped — the thought of getting on the boat and motoring across the bay right now was making him feel queasy and weak. A few wisps of steam rose off the broth, and it occurred to Erwin that he should probably stir it. But as he lifted his prosthesis to grasp the wooden spoon, it felt strangely heavy. Erwin looked down and found himself staring at a small, pale hand, attached to a slender, pale arm which disappeared in a mess of blankets. His gaze rose and met that of the boy, who’s eyes were wide and grey as a stormy sky. 

“I,” Erwin started, and the boy opened his mouth as if to speak, but no sound came from him. He stopped, frowned, and opened his mouth again. A barely-audible rasp escaped his throat, but it was just air, no sound came behind it. His eyes blew wide, his hand leaving Erwin’s prosthesis and pressing at his throat as he opened his mouth again and again in what appeared to be a soundless scream. 

“Wait, no, shhh,” Erwin said, reaching out to rest his hand on the boy’s shoulder. But the boy jerked away from him, shaking his head slowly, clearly horrified. His lips moved in ways that suggested words, language, but Erwin couldn’t tell what he was trying to say, only that he was terrified. And somehow, it was the boy’s terror that allowed Erwin to set his own terror aside. He felt himself filled something quiet, still, confident. 

“Listen to me,” he said, voice quiet but firm. The boy looked up at him, eyes still wide, but his mouth stopped moving. “You’re on a sandbar…an island. I found you washed up on the beach after last night’s storm. I don’t know how long you were out, or what might have happened, but you’re safe, here. This is my house. I warmed up your skin, but you need to drink this broth. I don’t know why you can’t speak, but I can take you to see a doctor and they can help you find your family.”

The boy’s eyes narrowed, and he shook his head emphatically and frowned. 

“Well, we can discuss it later,” Erwin said. “For now, please go sit on the couch. I’ll bring you a mug of broth.” He waited for the boy to go back to the couch, but he just stood there, staring at Erwin with an indecipherable expression. A moment passed, and the silence stretched on uncomfortably, and finally, just as Erwin was opening his mouth to reiterate his request, the boy turned and walked back to the couch, taking a moment to shoot Erwin one last angry look before flopping onto it. Erwin rubbed his hand over his forehead and sighed. Nevertheless, he felt less scattered. With the boy awake, he could make his own decisions and Erwin could simply take care of him. That felt strangely more manageable. 

As the broth worked it’s way up to a slow simmer, Erwin considered his options. He had avoided getting any sort of internet access out here, and now he regretted that. He would have to go into the library just to check missing persons records, and even with the calming influence of caring for another, going into town didn’t seem like a thing that he would be able to manage today. He had an old, beat up flip phone, and he supposed that calling his brother would be an option, but if his brother received a call out of the blue from him asking about missing persons, he was likely to call the therapist. If she told him that he didn’t stay for his entire appointment, he would be likely to come to the sandbar. And if he found Erwin here with a boy of indeterminate origin who couldn’t speak, Erwin had no idea what he would think. It was easy to guess, though, that he would insist Erwin get off the island. 

So that wasn’t an option at all, really.

He could care for the boy here, but near-drowning had a lot of health complications. He remembered in field training that it was a situation that required a hospital, always, because of the water in the lungs. Erwin didn’t want to go to the hospital, but perhaps more importantly, the boy didn’t. It would be difficult enough motivating himself across that bay if the boy was desperate to get to the other side. If he didn’t want to go at all? Well, it might be impossible. Erwin decided to keep an eye on his condition…that was all that he could do, really.

He ladled broth into the mug, brought it to the couch and handed it to the boy, who sniffed at it gingerly and promptly wrinkled his nose in disgust. 

“It’s chicken broth,” Erwin said with a sigh. “You need to drink it. You need to drink something warm, or else you might get ill.”

The boy looked at him for a long while, as if gauging his intent. Finally, apparently somehow satisfied, he took a sip, swirled it around in his mouth, and made the most miserable face Erwin had ever seen. Erwin chuckled, he couldn’t help it, and the boy’s face grew stormy as the sea. “I’m not laughing because I played a joke on you. Maybe you just don’t like chicken flavors. Look.” Erwin took the mug, took a sip from it, and handed it back. “It’s not great, but it’s not so bad either. 

The boy offered him a withering look, and Erwin frowned, looked at this shoes. “Listen,” he asked, and then he fixed his eyes on the boy again. “Where are you from?”

The boy tilted his head, and then pointed toward the ocean. 

“No, I know you washed up on the beach, but where did you live before?”

The boy’s brows furrowed, and he pointed to the ocean a bit emphatically. 

Erwin sighed. “Let’s try something else…” he said. He made his way over to his bookshelf where he pulled down a volume full of maps. He turned to a world map and set it before the boy. “Show me where you came from on this map,” he said, and the boy stared at it thoughtfully for a moment before placing one slender finger in the middle of the ocean, right on a spot that Erwin recognized as the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, closer to North America than South. Erwin frowned. “Can you write?” he asked, and the boy nodded. Erwin fetched a pen and some paper and handed them over. The boy set the mug of broth on the side table and then, with great concentration, began to make slow, deliberate lines. Erwin waited patiently. Finally, with a triumphant flourish, he handed over the notebook. 

Erwin stared at the notebook. The handwriting was childish, blocky, but easy to read. He looked at the word on the paper, and then looked back up at the boy. “Levi?” he asked, reading it off as more of a question than a declaration. The boy nodded, pointed to himself. “Levi is your name?” Erwin asked. The boy nodded again. “I’m…Erwin,” he said simply. Levi pointed to the paper, then tapped on it, so in careful, blocky print, Erwin wrote out his name. The boy took the notebook and stared at it, his mouth silently moving over the letters. His brow furrowed slightly, he looked back up and offered Erwin a grave sort of nod. “Nice to meet you, too,” Erwin said. 

The boy continued to sip at his broth, though he didn’t appear to care for it any more than he had the first time. Erwin wondered if he’d somehow avoided having chicken soup for his entire life, and he hoped that he wasn’t allergic or anything of the sort. 

“Can you write anything else?” he asked. Levi shook his head no.

“Okay,” Erwin said, “How old are you?”

Levi’s face lit up and he took the pen, but this time his writing was faster, more definitive. He handed over the notebook, and Erwin looked down, then back up, then back at the notebook. The number Levi had scribbled down was “185”, which made no sense at all. “You mean…eighteen and a half?” Erwin asked, but Levi frowned and shook his head, and pointed at the notebook. 

“So. You’re from the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, you can’t speak, you can only write numbers and your name, and you’re one hundred and eighty-five years old.”

Levi nodded and rolled his eyes, and Erwin could almost imagine him saying, “ _Obviously_ ,” in a snide tone. 

“Right, well. I. We should take you to the hospital, Levi, you could get pneumonia or an infection from the sea water and…I imagine you’ve got family somewhere who’s looking for you.”

Levi shook his head adamantly, his grip on the mug tightening. 

“I…I don’t want to go either, but look, it’s important.”

Levi set the mug down and placed both of his hands on Erwin’s arm. For a moment, Erwin was surprised at how small they were, how pale against him. He looked up and their gazes locked, and he felt a shock of something go through him, some vague recognition. In that moment, Levi looked for all the world like a broken thing, or a shard of something, and that was a strange thing to think, Erwin knew, but he thought it all the same. He didn’t want to think about it, so he picked the mug back up, pressed it into Levi’s hands, and said, “Drink this, we’ll figure the rest out later.”

***

He wasn’t sure what to do with his strange new houseguest. Erwin wasn’t used to having another soul on the island. In fact, the last time he had another human being here was when the natural-gas boat came by to top off his tanks. That was over a month ago, and though he’d offered, the man hadn’t even bothered to stick around for coffee. That suited Erwin just fine; he’d rather not have anyone in his little house anyway. It was his place, his sanctuary…he preferred to avoid intrusions. And yet this strange, pale slip of a creature had managed his way in, and Erwin couldn’t explain why, for once, having another soul in the place didn’t feel unwelcome. Perhaps because he’d brought Levi here. Perhaps because he just _needed_ so much, and it was a relief, truly, to have someone else’s well-being to focus on. Erwin had gotten too cerebral, it would seem. Dusting off the parts of him that were capable of giving a shit about another living thing was almost painful, but strangely, he liked it. 

He had retrieved his robe for Levi, who had snuggled into the thick flannel of it with relish. The boy was so much smaller than he was — at least a foot shorter without an ounce of extra weight on him, just thinly corded muscle, skin and bones — and Erwin had trouble finding any clothing that might fit. The robe would suffice for now, but he would need to take a trip into town soon. The thought of it was a little less anxiety-inducing now, as long as he didn’t have to go any further inland than the little bay town. No hospitals unless Levi asked for one, and everything else that they needed could be ordered from Amazon. Erwin poked his head out from the kitchen where he was making himself his standard lunch of two PB&J’s and took a long look at Levi. The boy appeared to be sleeping soundly, curled into his robe and surrounded by blankets. He was wheezing a bit, and that concerned Erwin, but other than that, he found himself a bit stunned by the way that the boy had rallied. He’d been washed up on the beach, not breathing. What events could have transpired that Erwin had found him just in the nick of time that way? 

“You know what they say about gift horses,” Mike muttered. He was standing next to Erwin, skinning an apple with his trusty carving knife. 

“He’s not a gift horse,” Erwin objected, his cheeks warming a bit as he went back to his sandwiches. 

“Oh yeah?” Mike chuckled, and Erwin frowned. “He shows up here with a storm that almost took your mind with it, needing to be saved and cared for right when your self-imposed ostracism was becoming too much. And he’s…definitely your type.”

Erwin’s brows furrowed and he went about spreading the strawberry jelly on his bread with deep concentration. Mike laughed. “Come on, Hoss, you didn’t think I would notice? Please. He reminds me of that cadet you hooked up with on leave…you remember that kid? What was his name?”

“Mike, please,” Erwin said, gritting his teeth. 

“Oh come on, Erwin, lighten the fuck up.” Mike cut a chunk out of his apple and popped it in his mouth. Erwin finished making his sandwich and they ate together in silence. 

Finally, Erwin said, “What do you suppose he meant, one-hundred and eighty-five?”

But Mike was gone.

***

Erwin ate his lunch and went out, cleaning the beach in the grey afternoon light. It didn’t feel like another storm was incoming, but he was glad that he wasn’t taking his boat out today just in case. Tomorrow he would feel better. Tomorrow he would go to town and get some clothes for the boy. He separated the debris into recyclables, biodegradable, and trash, pulled the driftwood up to the house for firewood, and did his lighthouse maintenance. By the time his chores were completed, it was almost dark. He made his way back to the house, hoping that Levi was still more or less okay. 

When he walked through the door, he was hit with a wave of heat. The kerosene heater must have been turned on high for _hours_ , Erwin thought, frowning. He took his shoes off in the mud room and turned the corner to find Levi, red faced and sweating, furiously cleaning his living room. Erwin’s robe was so large that it was practically dragging the floor, and somehow, Levi had managed to find a plaid bandana with which he’d tied back his dark hair and a kitchen towel which he was using to dust the shelves. The overall effect was somewhere between comedic and adorable, and Erwin wasn’t sure whether he should laugh or urge Levi back onto the ouch to rest. He realized that he was already sweating, and went over to turn the heater off. 

“Don’t you think it’s a little hot in here?” he asked, and Levi just shrugged. 

“Alright, well…are you hungry? I can make you a sandwich.” 

Levi wrinkled his nose and went back to dusting. “No sandwich then…” Erwin muttered, and then, “Wait, you shouldn’t be cleaning, you need to lie down, Levi. You almost died today, for christ’s sake…” Levi turned to him, frowned, and gestured around himself furiously. It wasn’t anything nearing actual sign language, but he still got his point across — Erwin was a pig, his house was a mess, and Levi couldn’t be expected to sleep in such a filthy place. 

_Well_.

Erwin sighed, scrubbed his good hand over his face, and shook his head defeatedly. “Fine. You let me help, then. And when we’re done you can take a shower, since you’re feeling so much better.” Secretly, silently, he thought about what Mike had said about gift horses and wondered if Levi was even…there, really. It was such a strange set of circumstances, and how could he be so damn _lively_ after nearly dying just a few hours before? He went to the kitchen and found the broom, sweeping up the ever-present sand on the floor with short, determined strokes. Sweeping had been difficult before his prosthesis was fitted, so he had to admit, he’d let it go a little. Apparently, for Levi, such an oversight was unacceptable. Pretty demanding for someone who’d came in mostly-dead and uninvited on the storm’s tide, in Erwin’s opinion, but so far, nothing about the boy was…expected. 

And that was it, wasn’t it? He was just so fucking _unexpected_ , everything about him. Erwin swept up a small pile of sand as he lost himself in his thoughts, and before he knew it, Levi was pulling on his sleeve and gesturing that he was sweeping the same spot forever and tried to pry the broom from his hand. “I can take care of it,” Erwin protested, holding on to the broom firmly. “I just get…distracted sometimes.” Levi offered him a vaguely suspicious look before shrugging and moving to the sink, where he stared blankly at the pile of dishes. 

“I know,” Erwin sighed, “I should do them more often, but…” he stopped talking as Levi turned back to him, shaking his head. The boy pointed to the sink and the dishes and the dish rack in turn, gesturing about until Erwin realized that he was asking how to clean them up. “You’ve not used a sink before?” he asked, incredulous. Levi simply stared at him blankly. 

“You turn this one for hot water, and this one for cold. Our water here is limited, so turn it off between dishes. Here’s the soap…you put some on a sponge, scrub the dish, rinse, and set it on the drying rack.” To his surprise, Levi looked utterly fascinated by the process, and he pulled the sponge from Erwin’s hand and began scrubbing up a plate almost immediately. Erwin wasn’t sure what to make of this, so he went back to his sweeping, and was able to finish the whole of his tiny house by the time Levi was done with the sink full of dishes. The house looked better now, and the sweltering temperature had reached something approximating normal. Erwin went to his hall closet and found some dry towels and a washcloth, which he set in the bathroom, Levi following close on his heels. 

“Okay,” he started, “I’m going to let you take a shower. Do you know how to work the taps?” He turned around to catch Levi’s reaction and found the boy naked, robe and bandana discarded to the floor. Erwin forced himself to keep his eyes on Levi’s, and nodded. “Alright then. I’ll leave you to it.” But Levi wouldn’t let him past. He placed those delicate hands on his arms again, looked up at him with a question in his eyes. “I can show you, Levi. Come here.” He opened the shower curtain and turned the taps, trying to get the water to a good temperature. When it was warm enough, he held the curtain open for Levi and gestured him inside, but Levi just tugged at his sleeve, pointed at his chest, and then swept his hand toward the shower.    
“I can’t shower with you,” Erwin sighed, shaking his head, but Levi frowned and pointed at him, then pointed to the shower even more adamantly. Erwin hesitated, and Levi pointed to his armpits and wrinkled his nose. Erwin couldn’t stop his smile. “You’re telling me I stink?” Levi nodded. He could think of dozens of reasons why he shouldn’t shower with his houseguest, but Levi’s deft fingers were making quick work of his buttons, and with every button, his resolve crumbled a bit more. Levi pushed the shirt from his shoulders insistently, but paused at the apparatus that held his prosthesis in place. 

“Oh,” Erwin muttered, “I’ll get that, it’s just,” but as he reached to undo the buckles with his good hand, Levi pushed him away and set about them himself. It had been so long since anyone had touched him, and Erwin tried not to assign any intimacy to the moment — the boy clearly didn’t have much of a concept of propriety, hell, he didn’t even know how to work a sink. Erwin knew that he should be questioning this more, but it was so much easier just to accept the way those pale fingers worked him out of his clothes, the way that uppity little nose wrinkled at the state of him, the way those slender arms pulled at him until they were both pressed into a shower the size of a small closet. 

Water poured down on them and Erwin began soaping up a washcloth, which Levi watched with intense interest. The light from the bathroom didn’t penetrate the shower curtain very well, and though it wasn’t anything he’d really considered before one way or another, Erwin was grateful for it today; it made him feel less self-conscious. He began washing himself, but Levi wouldn’t have any of it. He snatched the washcloth from Erwin’s hand, put additional soap on it, and began washing him thoroughly. Erwin sputtered, but Levi’s brows were furrowed in concentration and he was scrubbing at the skin of his chest with such enthusiasm it was turning pink. Erwin wasn’t sure he would stop at this point, so he simply stood there, watching as it happened. 

When he reached the stump, Erwin couldn’t help the way his muscles tensed, but Levi was shockingly gentle on the scarred, discolored skin there. He pushed at Erwin until he turned around and began scrubbing at his back, but when the washcloth reached the curve of his ass, Erwin turned back rather quickly. “I’ll,” he started, but those grey eyes caught his with an innocent, quizzical gaze, and he faltered. “Uh, I can…get that, thank you.” Levi’s expression turned dubious, but Erwin grabbed a fresh cloth and handed it to him. “Here, you wash yourself, now, and I’ll worry about…the rest of me, okay?” 

The boy simply shrugged, and Erwin sighed. This was becoming a problem. He was half hard. This was already a problem.

***

Erwin got out of the shower first, wrapping himself up quickly in a towel to try and avoid Levi’s eyes falling on his growing erection. He tossed some comment over his shoulder about finding clothes for Levi and quickly made his way to his room. The house felt cold in comparison to the warm, humid bathroom, and for that, Erwin was quite grateful. The cold helped with the issue of his cock, and a moment later he had pulled on briefs and old, well-worn jeans. He toweled his hair off and found a t-shirt and some socks for Levi, who wandered in wrapped in a towel while he searched for pants that might fit. His waist had to be a solid six inches smaller than Erwin’s, perhaps more. He was so slight that even Erwin’s belts would be too large. Finally, he pulled out an old pair of flannel pj’s with a drawstring waist and handed them over. 

“You can get dressed, I’ll go,” he said, but Levi just shrugged and dropped his towel. Erwin turned quickly, as though they hadn’t just been naked together in the shower, and busied himself straightening clothes. He felt a small hand press against his back, however, and he turned to find Levi still naked and wearing a peculiar expression. A crease had formed between his brows, and his mouth seems to be somewhere between a pout and a frown. Erwin looked at the longer pieces of dark hair clinging to his pale neck and swallowed. He pointed at Erwin’s eyes, pointed at himself, and then made an over-exaggerated movement to look away. He then pointed back at Erwin, tapped the side of his head twice, gestured to his body, wrinkled his nose for a moment, and then tilted his head quizzically. 

“No,” Erwin replied, shaking his head. “I don’t think you’re…gross. It’s…it’s just that you’re naked. I’m trying to give you privacy.”

Levi sighed and rolled his eyes, bringing his hand up as if shooing away the notion of privacy altogether. 

“Okay,” Erwin said, trying not to seem flustered. “I’m just…I need my…arm,” and he ducked off to the bathroom where he’d left his prosthesis. He took his time strapping it on, trying to mentally parse through the last few hours. He could feel his mind sliding over the details, trying to connect them, of course, but also passing over anything that seemed too odd. The trouble was, it was all odd. A part of him knew he should take Levi to the mainland tomorrow, that he should just be done with all of this, but another part of him felt strangely protective. It was the same sensation he had when his therapist tried to pry too much into ares he preferred be left alone. He didn’t want to analyze what that meant, but he could feel his chest going tight with the realization. Mike may have been a ghost but he was at least somewhat certain that Levi was not. 

Levi came tottering out from the bedroom swathed in clothing that hung enormous on him, and despite himself, despite the pressure on his chest, Erwin couldn’t help but smile. Levi scowled and crossed his slender arms with grace, raising his nose in the air very slightly. There was an arrogance to him that made Erwin’s heart skip in a way he couldn’t explain — in fact, he could hardly explain anything about what Levi did to him. Luckily, his stomach growled so loudly that Erwin could hear it from across the room. 

“Are you hungry?” Erwin asked. “I could…try to find something you’d like.”

Levi nodded, and then his mouth went into a small “o”, and he shuffled over to the bookshelf. His eyes scanned for a moment before he reached in and pulled out a cookbook. Erwin barely even remembered having such a book — his brother must have slipped it into his stash when Erwin wasn’t paying attention. Levi flipped through the pages, found what he was looking for, and brought it back over for Erwin’s perusal. He set the book down on the side table and pointed excitedly to the picture — a whole roasted trout — before looking up at Erwin expectantly. 

“You want fish?” He asked, dubious. Levi nodded. Erwin sighed.

A brief expedition through his pantry revealed that Erwin had exactly two cans of tuna and a can of boneless sardines. He opened one of each variety and set them before Levi, who sat stick-straight at the table with wide eyes. He stared at the cans before him, then looked back up at Erwin with something bordering on betrayal. 

“It’s fish, I promise!” he protested, but Levi only frowned, leaned over, and sniffed at each can in turn. When he raised his head, his expression was so morose that Erwin felt a wave of panic. How was he supposed to feed this creature who so despised sandwiches and chicken and demanded whole roasted fish? 

“Tomorrow, I’ll go to town and get you a whole fish. I don’t normally used the oven, though but…we’ll make do.” Levi just sighed, picked up a sardine with a careful thumb and forefinger, and popped it into his mouth. 

***

Unfortunately, the sharp edge of the can left Levi’s thumb bleeding. Erwin didn’t notice at first, he was letting his hot pocket cool while he stared at the beach, counting the seconds between each sweep of the light from his lighthouse. The number never changed, but that was precisely why he counted. It was just another coping mechanism. Just another exercise. He became vaguely aware of a shuffling noise and turned around in time to see Levi flailing wildly around the kitchen, moving vaguely in his general direction, eyes wide and mouth dropped open. It was at that moment, quite unfortunately, that he really looked at Levi’s mouth for the first time. His lips were soft and inviting, but Erwin’s eyes slid over them and focused on the sharp points of Levi’s teeth. He’d never seen anything like them before, had never seen a double row of sharp teeth in a human being’s mouth before. 

He hadn’t meant to gasp, but the sight of it had caught him entirely off-guard. Luckily, Levi seemed to think he was gasping at the blood that was streaming from his thumb and wending it’s crimson way down his arm. But Erwin wasn’t thrown by blood, not a bit. The instant he caught sight of it he felt something click into place, like chasing away a persistent ache by popping the joint that caused it. He caught Levi’s flailing arm in his good hand and held it gently, firmly. “It’s alright, Levi, come here,” he murmured. “I’ve got bandages in the bathroom.” Levi opened his mouth again as if to speak, and then snapped it shut as his expression became stormy. “I know…look, lets get you cleaned up. Come on.” 

Erwin led him to the bathroom and washed his cut gently. All the while Levi was pointing at the blood insistently, furrowing his brows and gesticulating, but Erwin honestly couldn’t decipher what it was that he wanted to tell him. “It hurts?” he guessed as he pressed a cotton ball soaked in alcohol over the cut. Levi nodded, then shook his head. “Yes, but that’s not what you meant?” Levi affirmed. 

“Alright…it’s dirty? I promise we’ll wash the blood off of your arm. You probably just nicked a vein.”

Levi shook his head, his eyes looking a bit more desperate. Then he pointed to the jade-toned soap dish, then back to his cut. 

“Of course we’ll wash it with soap.”

Levi clicked his tongue and shook his head angrily, then looked away from Erwin resolutely while Erwin finished cleaning the blood from his arm and bandaging his cut. He wasn’t sure what he’d done to frustrate the boy so, but Levi wouldn’t even look at him, and when Erwin’s eyes rose to find his face, he looked almost frightened. Even with his prosthesis, cleaning and dressing a wound was quick, precise work. When it was done, he leaned down to close the foot of height difference between them and find Levi’s steely gaze. 

“I’m sorry, Levi,” he said softly. “I’ll go to town tomorrow. I’ll get you a fish and some….books to teach us both sign language. And some clothes. You can come too, if you want.”

His eyes went wide and he shook his head quickly. 

“Alright then. It’ll be easier when you learn to sign. We had to know a little sign language in the military, but I don’t know a lot. Anyway it’s a lot easier than…pantomiming.” Levi nodded, sighed softly. 

“I’m going to finish my dinner. You gonna be okay?”

Levi nodded absently and Erwin waited for him to turn around and walk from the bathroom. He paused to throw away the trash from the bandage as Levi shuffled away, and when he found him again in the kitchen, the boy was rummaging through his cabinet. 

“What are you looking for?” he asked, heading to the microwave. Levi clicked his tongue and Erwin turned to see him triumphantly holding a bottle of brandy. He popped the cap off, tipped his head back, and polished off a fourth of the bottle before Erwin could find the good sense to stop him. “You can’t just drink like that!” He said, pulling the bottle away. Levi frowned defiantly. “You almost died today, Levi, your body needs a break.” 

The boy blinked at him slowly, drunkenness breaking over his features in waves, and all that Erwin could do was sigh. “Alright just…let me eat. And no more alcohol. Not tonight anyway.”

Levi hiccuped.


	2. Voiceless Cries

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He was beautiful, Erwin thought, very strange and very beautiful.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments and kudos are love <3
> 
> Signed dialogue is in italics, spoken dialogue is in quotations as always.
> 
> Enjoy <3

Setting out across the bay, it felt as though nothing had changed, as though Erwin had concocted everything in his head. Perhaps he had. He’d left that strange pale boy piled under blankets on his sofa, curled up like a cat and breathing heavily, but he half expected him to be gone by the time he returned. Then again, he’d half expected the same when he awoke this morning, and yet…

“He’s not a ghost, you know,” Mike said, squinting up at the sun through his shaggy hair.

“You’re only saying that because I want it to be true,” Erwin sighed, the accuracy of that statement hitting him after the words escaped his tongue. Mike smiled knowingly at him, and he frowned and looked away in turn, adjusting the rudder and aiming his little boat toward the dock on the other side of the bay. 

“Think about it,” Mike offered, smiling in spite of Erwin’s stormy expression. “I come and go. And anyway, I just tell you what you already know.”

“If he is though, and you’re my conscious, what does that make him? Did you see his teeth?”

“The last piece of your sanity, maybe?” Mike laughed, and Erwin scowled at him again. “Oh, come on, Hoss. You’ve got to stop taking everything so seriously. It’ll do you in one of these days.”

“I’m just…” Erwin began, squinting through polarized lenses at the sunlight glinting on the water. 

“Worried that he actually is?”

Erwin wanted to say yes, wanted to speak clearly and objectively about his own mental state, about the deep fears that were roiling in his gut, about how the sequence of events was unmistakeable — and it wasn’t as if it hadn’t occurred to him that he might have really lost his mind that night in the waves. What if he’d kept rolling about on the sand, screaming until his throat went hoarse, flailing until he exhausted himself? What if his mysterious drive to live really hadn’t taken hold of him? What if he was still in those waves, even now?

 _Dissociative panic attack_ was a term bandied about by his therapist. What if…what if this was all a part of that? Worse, what if he had died in the waves that night? What if the sea had taken him, and all of this was the moment between his last gasp and a total cessation of brain function? What if the moment before death stretched eternal, neither heaven nor hell, but simply a continuation of existence? 

He was terrified, terrified, and several seconds passed before he realized that he was gasping for breath and the boat was veering off down the bay. With steep concentration, he focused himself on the dock and brought the boat toward it. He tried not to think about the futility of each of his actions in the event that Levi was a figment of his imagination, but it was difficult, bordering on impossible. 

“Just keep going,” Mike said, his face creased into a rare but effective look of concern. “Look, if it’s real, then you’re doing what you need to. If it’s all a fever dream…then it doesn’t make a difference. But…what was that shit you used to say in strategy meetings? About probability?”

“If the consequences of the less-probable option are catastrophic, they must be afforded as much or more consideration than the consequences of the more-probable option.”

“Yeah, so, if he’s real and you’re not any crazier than you were before, then you have to help him, right? And if he’s not real and you’ve finally gone over…then what’s it hurt?”

Mike was right. Mike wasn’t real. Erwin nodded and set his mouth in a straight line, bringing his boat in to the dock. 

***

He might have gone a bit…overboard. Erwin didn’t purchase things for himself unless they were quite strictly necessities, but given the opportunity, he bought a great many things for Levi. The little general store in town had basic white undershirts, briefs, and some jeans; Erwin bought the smallest sizes available (which earned him a look from Paula the shopkeeper), but wasn’t sure they would fit. The only shoes he could find were black flip-flops, so he decided that those would have to do for now. Where he truly went overboard was at the library, where he had half an hour of internet access and everything that Amazon had to offer. He bought shirts, jeans, extra pillows and blankets, boots, sandals, sneakers, at least ten different American Sign Language instructional programs and books, and educational workbooks to teach literacy skills to adults. He didn’t even want to look at the total in his cart, but comforted himself with the thought that at the very least, the shipping was free. 

With that covered, he went to the market. Mr. Hightower had a cold case with fresh fish from the day’s catch. Erwin considered his tiny freezer and bought five different whole fish, trying not to think about their disturbing, unblinking eyes. Levi’s preferences were completely mysterious to him, so he bought cod, mackerel, salmon, haddock, and a striped bass. As Hightower wrapped the fish in butcher paper, he regaled Erwin with stories of what the storm had washed ashore. Erwin smiled and nodded and wondered what would happen if he added his own experience to the conversation. 

It was far better not to, he knew that, but still he felt the urge.

Finally, Hightower said, “I’m glad ta see ya eatin’ fish, Smith. It’s a lot better than that other crap ya eat. But ya know, you could fish this stuff for yourself. Surely ya have the time…”

Erwin felt a pang of annoyance. “Yeah, I guess I wanted to try it before I bought all of that equipment…” 

“Smart man! But ya know, I know Rob…you know, Rob? Burchett? His arthritis is so bad these days, he’s got no need of his tackle. I bet he’ll give ya a great price on the lot of it.”

Erwin thought about it, about how often he would have to come to town for fish if that was all that Levi would eat, and decided quite quickly that whatever Rob wanted to charge for his tackle, it was definitely worth it. 

“I’ll take it, if he’s selling.”

“Great! Leave your stuff here. I’ll take ya to his place.”

***

An hour later Erwin had all the fishing tackle that he could ever have imagined wanting. He loaded his bounty into the boat, waved goodbye to Mr. Hightower, and set back toward his home. All the polite conversation and money spent had exhausted Erwin quite thoroughly, and he found himself feeling a bit desperate to get back to his home. Now that he was alone, puttering across the bay, his chest began to get tight again, and he forced himself to breathe and breathe and breathe. 

The cold, pungent, salty ocean air filled his lungs, and he tried to focus on the sensations around him, pulling them apart one by one to keep his mind grounded in the present. The motor purred, vibrated as he moved the rudder this way and that, the sun flashed and glittered on the sea, hid behind clouds, and returned again. He felt the side of his boat — solid, metal, cold — and bit his lips for the small shock of pain it provided. He had to get back to Levi, had to take care of him…he simply couldn’t space out right now. Where was Mike, anyway? Something needed to take him out of this, anything, but the crushing weight of realization was coming down on him now and Erwin began to shiver and shake, even as he ground his teeth together and tried to stave off whatever attack wanted to wend it’s way through his neurons. 

What was so fucking wrong with him anyway? It was a trip into town, that was all, just a simple fucking trip. He thought about the smiles on the faces of Mr. Hightower and Rob, thought about their VFW hats and the way they looked at him with an unbearable understanding, veterans themselves of…what, Korea? Vietnam? It didn’t matter, they’d made it out somehow, rebuilt, and here he was with pieces of his mind and body blown out halfway across the world and nothing left to hold on to but the ghost of his dead best friend, a lighthouse that didn’t need him and the possibility of a boy who did. Somehow, he was dimly aware of the coppery taste of blood — he’d bitten his lip to hard, or maybe it was just too chapped — he thought about Levi and wondered for what felt like the millionth time that day if he would even be there when he got home. What if he’d bought all of this for a boy who didn’t exist? What would he do with it? Maybe throw it into the ocean. But there was enough junk in the ocean, truth be told. The last thing that the ocean needed was the evidence of his insanity. 

Erwin set his jaw, began to make a list in his mind. Bring the boat into the dock, unpack his goods, check on the boy, check on the lighthouse, make dinner, his routine, his ever so necessarily familiar routine, even with the new addition. He repeated it in his mind, again and again, ignored the niggling persistence of his doubts, of that treacherous voice that insisted on reminding him that this all might be a fever dream. Yet somehow, despite everything, he managed to get his boat to the dock. He tied the boat up and began unloading it. Before he finished, Levi appeared like a specter just before his front door, too-large clothes hanging off of his narrow frame, a slight frown on his face. Erwin was vaguely aware of a strange feeling that came over him at the sight, as though he were a machine made of gears and levers, and everything had somehow slowly clicked it’s way into place. He shook his head slightly. That was a strange thing to think.

“Wanna come give me a hand?” he called out, but Levi just stood there, staring. He assumed that the sound of his voice had been drowned in the crashing of the waves and the ocean breeze, or that Levi simply didn’t care to come help. Neither would have surprised him, not particularly. With a sigh, he grabbed up the parcels and carried them to the house. The silent boy swung the door open for him and padded softly behind him, carefully wiping the sand from his bare feet as Erwin set down his things and removed his shoes. “I got you a lot of stuff, but most of it wont be in for a few days, at least. I’ll go back into town next week and get everything. I…” But Levi was already poking through the bags and sniffing the air intently. 

“Fish?” Erwin asked, and Levi nodded vigorously and touched his stomach with his hand. “I know you’ve got to be hungry…” he said, picking up some of the parcels. “You get those other ones and bring them into the kitchen, I’ll see if I can figure out how to work the oven…”

After everything was moved on to the kitchen table, Erwin began fiddling with the knobs on the stove. “I think the pilot light went out,” he said, turning, “I can re-li-…” but his voice died in his throat as his eyes fell on Levi sitting cross-legged on the table, eyes closed, holding the huge, whole salmon with both pale hands, sharp teeth sunk deep into it’s belly. He watched as Levi took great bites and chewed, crunching up bones, slurping at the skin, his reverie uninterrupted by Erwin’s stares. He was reminded of every National Geographic special he had ever seen of a predator consuming their prey, and somehow, it was oddly mesmerizing. Levi had eaten half the fish by the time he realized that Erwin was watching him, and he immediately frowned, looked down, and slowly raised the salmon as if in offering. Erwin couldn’t stop his smile. 

“No, really, eat it. I don’t mind,” he said, waving his hand vaguely. “I just thought we would….cook it. But this is fine. This is easier, I think.”

Levi just shrugged and went back to tearing at the fish, and Erwin was again transfixed by those sharp teeth. A part of him almost wanted to believe that he was insane, that he had lost his mind. He wasn’t sure what else this could possibly mean. But if Levi was just a product of his broken mind, then how was the fish disappearing, bite by bite? Erwin thought of movies he had seen with multiple personalities and felt a small pang of concern, but Mike’s reminder came back to him. It didn’t really matter if he was dead or almost dead, if he was dreaming or hallucinating or dissociating; if this was real (and real it certainly seemed to be), then Levi needed him, and a very quiet part of him insisted softly, steadily, that he needed Levi just as much. 

And then the fish was gone, and Levi’s eyes looked heavy, some of the tension in his shoulders ebbing away. Erwin felt vaguely…proud? Yes, proud of himself. He had managed. He had fed Levi something that wasn’t met with disgusted looks and frowns, and he hadn’t even had to figure out the pilot light to do it. Levi held up his hands, which were sticky and a bit bloody, and tilted his head to the side. Erwin gestured him over the the sink and turned on the taps, testing the water until it was the right temperature, then poured a healthy amount of soap onto Levi’s outstretched hands. He watched as the boy carefully scrubbed his hands before moving on to his face. When he was done, Erwin gave him a dish cloth to dry off with and set about putting the rest of the fish in the freezer. 

“We’ll put one out for you in the morning, okay?” he said, and Levi nodded. “That way it will be thawed out by the time you’re ready to eat. Also, I got tackle,” he was met with a blank stare, “Uh…fishing gear, you know, rods, nets, hooks, bait, that sort of thing. So I should be able to catch fish for you too, in the boat. You can come with me if you want.” Levi frowned deeply and shook his head, making the motion of waves with his hands and then pretending to die before “reviving”, shaking his head vigorously, and making an unmistakably fearful face. “You’re afraid of the ocean because you don’t want to die?” Erwin asked, and Levi nodded. “Well, that’s fair enough, I suppose. But how are you supposed to get off of this island?” The boy’s brows furrowed and he shook his head emphatically, crossed his arms over his chest, and planted his feet on the kitchen floor. “You’re not going to leave?” Erwin asked, “But what about your family?” 

Levi rolled his eyes and turned back toward the parcels on the table, and it was quite clear that he was no longer interested in the conversation. Truth be told, that was fine with Erwin. He knew vaguely that he should have pressed the issue, should have checked missing person’s reports while he was in town, should have at least told someone about the mysterious boy who had washed up on his shore, but there were a lot of things Erwin should have been doing these days, very few of which he could bring himself to do. 

He pushed the thought from his mind just as Levi found the blue jeans and began to strip down right there in the kitchen. He stripped his too-large shirt off and his belly curved out a bit where it had been concave; against his better judgement, Erwin smiled…it wasn’t even forced.

***

Assuming that he wouldn’t need his sleeping pill that night had been pure foolishness; after the first nightmare, he knew that he wouldn’t be sleeping again, but if he took his meds now, he would be too tired to wake up on time in the morning. There was no real reason why he couldn’t sleep in, except the violation of his personal routine, which was reason enough for him. So he tossed and turned, his inability to sleep quickly devolving into the quicksand of misery that so loved to occupy him through the wee hours. Mike never came to him at night, a phenomenon that he was none too keen to explore, so on the nights like these he was left to the treachery of his own thoughts until the sun rose. 

Not that he really escaped then, either. But thinking that way wasn’t…it wasn’t going to help at all. 

His throat felt dry and he rose, making his way to the kitchen on slippered feet so as not to wake Levi. He sucked down a cup of water quickly, then filled another to bring back to bed with him. He was almost out of the kitchen before he thought better of it; there was a bottle of whiskey stashed away for nights like this. Leaving it in the kitchen wouldn’t do anyone any good. He’d left his prosthesis off, so he had no choice but to tuck the bottle under his elbow while he picked up the glass with his hand. Slowly, quietly he made his way back to his bed, but something was off. Below the quilt that covered his bed there was a small, vaguely recognizable series of lumps. Erwin frowned slightly and set the glass and bottle on his bedside table before whispering, “Levi?”

The quilt pulled back and Levi laid there, naked aside from the briefs that Erwin had gotten him earlier that day. Erwin looked away, but Levi put a hand on his thigh and pulled at him gently. His request was clear, and Erwin was too tired, too anxious, too depressed not to give him what he asked. Crawling into bed wasn’t so bad, really, he could sit with his back against the headboard, so it wasn’t too…awkward. Of course. His stomach fluttered a bit, and he cleared his throat and pulled the quilt over his legs. Levi curled into him and he felt himself tense, which made Levi pull away. 

“No, it’s okay, you can, we can…”

Levi huffed, reached over to the table, and grabbed up the bottle. 

“Maybe you shouldn’t,” Erwin started, but Levi was already drinking a generous swig. He felt himself sighing. Levi wasn’t his charge, anyway, and what did it matter if he wanted to have a drink? Erwin wasn’t one to deny him. He watched Levi’s throat bob once, twice, three times before reaching over and gently prying the bottle from him. He lifted the bottle to his lips and took a few gulps of his own, winced, shook his head, and set the bottle on the bedside table. “You’re quite the drinker,” he muttered. Levi shrugged nonchalantly and pointed one finger at Erwin, then lifted two fingers in the air. “I am too…” Erwin said, sighing. “I wasn’t always.” 

Silence fell between them, but Erwin felt something scratching at the back of his mind, “I wish you could tell me your story,” he confessed in a hushed breath, the alcohol already feeling warm in his gut. “I bought some things for you….for both of us, so we can communicate. You’ll have to learn to sign and write. But someday…you’ll tell me where you came from, right?”

Levi stared at him, stared directly into his eyes the way that he did sometimes, as if trying to gauge his intent. Erwin swallowed and felt very warm, and finally Levi nodded. 

“Good.”

Levi pointed at Erwin, raised his brows, and tilted his head to the side. 

“You don’t want to know my story…do you?

Levi nodded vigorously and pointed to the blunt end of Erwin’s stump, just visible beyond the short sleeve of his white undershirt. Brows lifted slightly, he pressed one slender digit into Erwin’s chest and mimed talking, then nodded again. 

“Alright, alright, I’ll tell you,” he finally assented, and Levi curled into his side again. This time, Erwin lifted his arm and let Levi press his warm little body against him. Without warning, he felt a lump push up his throat, and as that soft head pressed into his chest, right over his heart, there was a moment where he could have burst open, where emotion rolled over him in waves, but it was something that he couldn’t quite define, something that landed between relief and nostalgia and a sweetness that he couldn’t explain. His breath hitched in his throat, and Levi looked up at him, light eyes questioning and calm. 

“Sorry, sorry, ah…” he swallowed his words thickly and Levi tucked his head into Erwin’s chest again. With a deep breath, he wrapped his arm around that small body and pulled it in close to him. Levi complied with a soft sigh, and finally, he began his tale.

“Um, well…I was in the military. The Marines. And we…we were fighting a war.” Slender arms wound around his waist, Erwin breathed, tried to relax. “I was a Captain, anyway, and what they called a…gifted strategist. I created some strategies of attack that were considered pretty revolutionary. I was supposed to be out in the fray with my men, more often than not, but my superior officers wanted me to start hanging back. I told them I needed to be close to the action or else I couldn’t really know the enemy, and without knowing the enemy, I couldn’t strategize the way that I needed to. It was a big point of contention, I was an important asset. But then I…well. I don’t remember much, but I was traveling with my men and there was a…bomb, planted by the side of the road. And it happened to be a little to the right of the vehicle we were in, but close enough that it took my arm when it went off.”

Erwin sighed a bit raggedly. He’d told the story a few times, and of course, there was so much more, so much more to it, but he tried to avoid the most painful parts. Nothing good came of rehashing what had happened to his First Lieutenant and best friend, Mike. Nothing good came of discussing his own TBI. Even so, it was shocking how something so transformative, something that had inverted his world and shaken him to his core, remade him as a person inside and out, could be reduced to such a simple little tale. “I uh…couldn’t really work, anymore. So I was given a lot of commendations and a good retirement benefit and…and well, that was about all. I stayed with my brother awhile, but I preferred…to be alone. So I bought this place.”

Levi looked up at him then, solemn, and nodded. He sat up a bit, and Erwin let his arm fall slightly, allowing him whatever room he need to maneuver, assuming that story time was over and Levi would find his way back to his bed. Instead, Levi swung his leg over so he was straddling Erwin’s lap and stared into his eyes, the light from the bedside lamp bathing his pale form in it’s soft, buttery glow. Erwin swallowed thickly and began to ask a question, but Levi’s thin brows quirked downward into a reproach, and he managed to bite back his protestations. He sat quietly, then, as those soft fingers fluttered over his cheeks, traced the curve of his nose, pushed up through his hair and came back, one hand following the cut of his jaw, the other tracing the shell of his ear. Levi seemed to be almost cataloging him, his eyes sliding over Erwin’s features slowly, inch by inch, each detail taken in one bit at a time. He let his eyes slip closed as those light, soft touches moved across his brows and down his eyelids, across his lips and he suddenly realized they were rough, chapped, and it made him conscious of them for the first time in…months, really. He hadn’t given a damn about his lips or any other part of his body, not since his mind had betrayed him so. 

_Of course not,_ a whisper wound through his head, _you’ve just been sitting on your island, waiting to die._

He whisked that truth from his mind and focused instead on those hands as they wrapped about his neck, squeezed lightly, worked their way over his clavicles. And then he felt a tug on his shirt, and his eyes flew open to meet Levi’s and the question that they held. He hesitated, then, because it occurred to him to wonder where this was going, where it was leading, but the question being stared at him was overwhelming, overcoming, and he lifted his arms slowly and allowed the undershirt to be tugged over his head. Erwin stared down at his own torso for a moment, a body he hardly recognized anymore. Most of his muscle definition was gone, though he wasn’t completely soft…not yet. He had thought about trying to maintain his body, but he wasn’t even sure where to begin anymore. The physical therapist had offered to teach him, but…

Levi’s fingers found his chin and lifted his head, breaking his gaze at his own torso and the little rolls of pudge that were uncomfortably visible in this position. A frown colored his lips, and Erwin acquiesced to his insistence, fixing his eyes instead on the glossy dark of Levi’s hair, on the way his small, lean form looked, perched there on his lap. Satisfied, Levi let his fingers stroke down Erwin’s left arm until they’d explored every vein that sat near the surface, pushing them down and letting them pop up again, articulated his shoulder, his elbow, his wrist, and finally each of his fingers. His hands were so small in comparison to Erwin’s own, and he found himself fascinated by the contrast of them; two so soft and slender and fine pressed against one large and calloused, and he couldn’t help but consider what it might have been like to clasp his other hand around them, to swallow them up in his grasp. Then all too quickly, Levi’s touch was ghosting up to his other shoulder, to the mottled twisting scars of skin that had once been torn to ribbons in one fateful burst of light and heat that Erwin couldn’t remember, could only know by the evidence of it planted in the nothingness where his arm used to be, strong and smooth and unmarred.

He sucked in a breath and let his head fall back, eyes closed as Levi examined the whorls and fissures of scar tissue around the place where they’d pieced together enough flesh to cover the terminal end of his arm. It was not attractive, not in any way shape or form; Erwin knew that all too well. He avoided mirrors, but he’d looked in enough of them to know the overall effect, the way that it made him look unbalanced, ruined. The way that the stump itself, in appearance and texture, was nothing less than revolting. He’d seen it on the faces of those he’d come into contact with before it had been carefully covered, hidden, and concealed, he’d seen the carefully schooled medical detachment that came with their professions. Even so, the revulsion had been there, faint, and just behind their eyes. Seemingly undaunted, Levi’s fingers ghosted over his flesh with precision and intent, asking questions that could only be answered viscerally, not verbally. It was clear that he was not to interrupt this flow, this conversation between a silent boy and his own ruined form, so he sat back and let it occur as it would. 

Gradually, those touches found their way to Erwin’s side, where he knew that a series of strange scars would await Levi’s fingers and eyes, the leftovers of the explosion that took off his arm, though much of it seemed to be stopped by his specialized clothing. Had he been wearing civilian clothes, shrapnel might have finished him off. He was lucky, then, to have had military-issue gear…or “lucky”, in a manner of speaking anyway. He forced away the thoughts, the memories, and focused instead on the way Levi’s fingers pushed in until they found his ribs, his sternum, felt a shiver go down his spine as that touch passed lightly over his nipples, each in turn, and then in circles over both at once. Erwin’s eyes flew open and he began to protest, but the sound of it died in his throat as a finger was pressed against his lips to quiet him. He felt his heart beating a bit faster as Levi returned to his ministrations, pushing his palms up Erwin’s sides as he pressed his ear to the left side of his chest, just above his heart. Without thinking, he lifted his arm and pressed his hand against Levi’s back, against the prominence of his spine, and felt him move as he quietly sighed. 

“I wish that I could hear you,” Erwin whispered, strangely moved by the way the boy listened to his heartbeat while brushing his hands up and down his sides. “Just once.”

Levi lifted his head and looked into Erwin’s eyes, bringing his hands up again to cup his face. Erwin’s hand slid down unit it rested on his lower back, just above the slender curve of his ass, and Levi arched back into it, causing Erwin’s breath to catch in his throat. The boy pressed his nose against Erwin’s, and though he tried to angle his head to catch those lips, Levi pulled back just enough to deny him. A deep sigh escaped him, and the boy rubbed their noses together again very briefly, if only just to tease him. After that it was back to the exploration of his body, and Erwin hardly found himself surprised when those insistent little hands tugged at his boxers. He thought of protesting, but not in any serious way — the more Levi touched him, the more he wanted to be touched, the more Levi explored him, the more he wanted him to explore, to do whatever it was that he desired. Maybe he was just desperate for the contact, it had been so long, after all. Maybe it was something else, something unexplored. He resolved to think about it later as Levi moved off of him just long enough to pull away the quilt, just long enough to let him raise his hips and have his boxers pulled away entirely. 

Oddly, he felt nothing even verging on shame, but more of a vague sort of interest. He wanted to know what Levi was doing, what Levi was thinking and feeling, why he was so intrigued by his form. He considered the differences between them — their teeth, the size of them, what lay between their legs — and decided that perhaps Levi was intrigued by these differences. He wasn’t quite allowing himself to indulge in the belief that this strange, silent boy was a heretofore unknown sea creature over a century old, but it was difficult to deny his more unique features…especially his teeth. The detached, objective view of it all became impossible to maintain as Levi’s fingers slipped down his belly and found his hipbones, as he felt one finger press into the indentation of his belly button and make his body jerk slightly, involuntarily. Levi looked up at him, surprised, and then a very small smile slipped over his features, and he tried it again. Erwin jerked and huffed, chuckling slightly at the mischief in Levi’s gaze. “Enough,” he murmured, and Levi frowned and moved down slightly, moving to sit on one of Erwin’s thighs while he examined the V of his pelvis and the way that it led down to his cock.

Belatedly, Erwin felt himself blushing. He cleared his throat and Levi looked up, immediately intrigued by the flush of his cheeks. He pressed his fingers to them again and tilted his head. “It’s fine,” he murmured softly, lifting his hand and stroking it through that soft, dark hair. “I…no one has touched me in a long time, that’s all.” Levi nodded and went back to his exploration, fingers pushing through the curls of his pubic hair, and he frowned, gaze switching between that and the hair on his head, as if to compare them. He looked up, a question burning through his features again, and Erwin shrugged. “I don’t know why it’s darker. My beard is too.” Levi looked vaguely troubled, but his gaze fell again to his fingers as they slowly, gently moved down to Erwin’s still-soft cock. His gasps and twitches made it obvious where the most sensitive parts of him were, and it only took a moment of Levi’s attention for him to stiffen. 

“Are you….Levi….you… _ahh_ …fuck, you should…probably stop…” 

Erwin didn’t want to say it, but this seemed sudden and he felt guilty for the possibilities of wrongdoing behind his actions, for the possibility that Levi wasn’t aware of himself, but how could that be so? He’d initiated this, he was ushering it forward, and it…it felt _incredible_. For his part, Levi didn’t let Erwin’s hesitant, shaky suggestion impede his progress. His soft, small hand slipped around Erwin’s balls and he fondled them gently for a moment before giving them a light tug that drew a sharp gasp from Erwin. The other hand stroked up and down his cock, not giving enough pressure to sate him, just enough to get him red and swollen and panting. Then, as Erwin groaned in frustration and pushed his hips up, Levi scrambled up from his thigh. Somehow, his eyes had closed, and he opened them now to find Levi stripping out of his briefs, his eyes glinting with…what, excitement? Hunger? It was difficult to tell. Whatever it was, it sent a jolt of electricity through Erwin, and when Levi settled himself over Erwin’s hips, he couldn’t help the way his hand wrapped around Levi’s ass, easily encompassing the curve of it as Levi wiggled into his palm. 

“What, uh…Levi?” Erwin stammered slightly as Levi grasped his cock again and gave it a few pumps, lining up their hips. He settled himself right over Erwin, sinking his hips down until Erwin felt the head of his cock brushing some delightful slickness. His breath caught in his throat in a ragged gasp, his head sinking back against the headboard of his bed. They both trembled for a moment in perfect silence before Levi began rutting himself against his cock, and Erwin nearly stopped breathing so that he could catch the little gasps that rattled almost soundlessly through the boy. He was working himself over with Erwin’s cock and it felt incredible; Erwin began to realize quite suddenly that he wasn’t going to last long, not like this, not after it had been so long. He moaned deeply and Levi reached forward and pressed his free hand over Erwin’s eyes, a hand that smelled of sex and a bit of the sea, briny and alive.

“ _Levi_ ,” Erwin whispered his name fervently, and he might have been shocked at the intimacy of that sound if Levi hadn’t began stroking his cock then, his hand curled around it, pumping him even as he continued rutting on him. The combination of those sensations pushed Erwin over the edge only moments later, his cock twitching in Levi’s hands as he came with a groan, with a curse, with Levi’s name on his lips. 

He was oversensitive and gasping but Levi wasn’t ready to stop, pulling Erwin’s hand around and grinding against it, his hand slipping away from Erwin’s eyes in time for him to see the flush across his slender chest, to see the way the tendons in his neck strained and stuck out, long and thin, his lean muscles bunched and flexing beneath his skin, his mouth falling open, sharp teeth peeking out from his lips. 

He was beautiful, Erwin thought, very strange and very beautiful. 

Erwin began to take over, then, swiping his fingers back and forth, exploring Levi and finding the sweet spots that made him gasp, that made his breath hitch in his throat, that made him grimace and shake. He barely felt like he’d begun when Levi’s own orgasm crashed over him with a ragged breath, his entire body going rigid before collapsing bonelessly against Erwin’s chest. 

Sticky, sweaty, flesh against flesh, Erwin could swear he heard their heartbeats align, could see the way they inhaled and exhaled simultaneously, his breath fluttering through the black silk of Levi’s hair as he blinked slowly. Eventually, Levi stirred and rose, pulling Erwin to the shower to rinse the sex from their bodies. This time Erwin allowed Levi to wash him thoroughly, too overwhelmed by the events of the evening to formulate a protest.

***

After that, Levi became his shadow. They woke up together at dawn, and Erwin would put coffee on and set a frozen fish out for Levi’s dinner. They would shower, and Levi would groom Erwin carefully. His desire to do so had felt strange to Erwin at first, but now he allowed Levi to shave his face every morning and pluck stray hairs from his brows. Once they were both groomed to Levi’s standards, they would move to the kitchen, where Levi would practice his writing and reading as Erwin drank his coffee and had his toast. Levi would clean up from breakfast as Erwin checked over his reading and writing exercises, then the two of them would dress, Levi carefully strapping Erwin into his prosthetic arm. The two of them would trek to the lighthouse, where Levi would dash up the stairs wildly for no reason at all, as far as Erwin could tell, and wait at the top of the stairs with a smug, bored sort of expression. They would go about the maintenance of the lighthouse, Levi dusting and sweeping while Erwin checked wires and cleaned the glass of the panes and the great bulb. 

From there, the routine varied from day to day. Sometimes, they would clean the trash that had washed ashore during high tide. Sometimes, they cleaned the house. Sometimes, they simply worked on Levi’s education. Erwin tried to avoid talking aloud unless it was strictly necessary; if they _both_ had to learn to sign to communicate, they would learn much faster. He’d been worried, at first, that signing would be too difficult with one hand, but since most signs were formed with the dominant hand, Erwin was able to modify it quite easily. They burned through the instructional DVD’s he’d purchased quite quickly, but there were so many at all skill levels; Erwin just kept ordering them. Despite his commitment to communicating in ASL instead of spoken English, Levi would regularly demand to be read aloud to, and Erwin was happy to oblige him. The only times they ever really spent apart were those that required Erwin to venture out to sea. Approximately twice a week, Erwin would pass a day fishing. Levi was still terrified of the sea, and refused to join him, so those days were passed with Mike. 

At night, after cleaning up from dinner and a nightly reading time, they would go to bed together. Sometimes, Levi would curl into Erwin and drop off to sleep almost immediately, other times, he would make lewd signs (he’d made them up himself, since none of the DVD’s offered such instruction), though Erwin didn’t need the signs to understand; the look in Levi’s eyes could be translated by anyone. 

Trips into town were still harrowing things; Erwin felt that if only Levi would come with him, he would feel so much better. Sometimes, when he returned from town, he would feel like he was comprised entirely of razor wire and right angles, and even then, Levi would curl into his chest and let himself be squeezed until the pads of Erwin’s fingers left purple bruises on his pale skin. Sometimes Erwin would sink his teeth into the flesh of Levi’s ass, or his thighs, or the sharp ridges of his hipbones until the boy squirmed and tears filled his eyes, but his sweet little hand would sign _yes, yes, yes_ even as Erwin fisted up his hair and pulled. He could never quite eradicate the desire to hear Levi cry out, but contented himself in the careful observation of the way his body moved and quaked. 

After awhile, he asked Levi if he could cut his long, unruly hair, and Levi assented. He only meant to shape it up a bit, but cutting with his left hand proved more difficult than he’d anticipated, and by the time Levi became frustrated enough to take over the process, he had to shave half of his hair off just to fix the unfortunately patchy mess that Erwin had created. What shocked them both was how nice it looked when Levi was done. 

_You missed your calling._ Erwin signed to him, his smile proud. 

_Nice try, shithead_ , Levi shot back. His personality, Erwin had learned, was as salty as the sea. 

He wasn’t better, not really, but having Levi close, caring for Levi and being cared for, it made him feel some semblance of normal again, even if he was only normal on this island, in the space that was occupied solely by the two of them. Erwin didn’t mind fishing by himself (he had Mike to keep him company, after all), but when it came to crossing the bay, he was finding it harder and harder to do so. On the night preceding his supply-runs into town, he found it almost impossible to sleep, even with his medicines. When he left, all he could think about was what would happen if Levi was hurt while he was gone, or what would happen to Levi if he was hurt on his journey, despite the fact that it was a short trek by boat over a fairly benign body of water. These anxieties would stack up until the weight of them threatened to tear him apart, but regardless of his struggles, Levi was adamant in his refusal to accompany him. 

As the months passed, Erwin’s mailbox in town filled with “reminders” that he was missing all of his appointments, that his arm would need to be refitted and adjusted soon, that the doctors needed to know his progress. They were entirely ignored, dumped unopened in the post office trash can with a smile and a nod to the postmaster. He’d already decided that he wasn’t going back to the hospital unless it became critical. Though he told himself that he’d never leave Levi that long, truth be told, a part of him knew that Levi would be fine; the true concern was that if he left, he might never find his way back. Last time, he’d nearly lost his mind and with it, his life. A part of him told himself that he was being ridiculous — it was just a trip into the city, after all, he had developed a set of coping mechanisms for this — nevertheless, the doctors pleas went unanswered. 

It was late in the summer and they had taken to opening the windows to keep the house from becoming too stifling. Even so, the sun was beating down on the little island daily with a brutality that was quite uncharacteristic, even in the summertime. Levi seemed to be more cross by the day, his moods souring the more the temperature rose, spoiling like food left on the counter. He had become an insatiable reader and his writing was improving dramatically, both skills that Erwin had been pleased to see him honing…however, there were unintended consequences as well. Erwin had begun bringing home stacks of magazines to give Levi a taste of the world beyond their little island, but the more that he read, the more angry Levi had become. 

_Why do you do this?_ he signed to Erwin one sultry morning, face covered in accusation.

 _Do what?_ Erwin asked, genuinely confused. They had been going about their usual breakfast routine, though instead of practicing his writing, Levi had been reading the latest issue of The Atlantic. 

_Destroy the Earth!_ He signed back, pointing to the article he was reading. 

_I don’t destroy anything._

_Don’t play dumb_.

 _There are plenty of people who are trying to help the earth._ Erwin sighed, rubbing his hand over his face. _What about them?_

_None of you are taking this seriously enough. You shouldn’t even be using gasoline in your boat._

“What the fuck do you think I should do?” Erwin exploded, his voice rising to a volume he’d never used with Levi before. “ _Row_ the damn thing?” 

_You’re not half as helpless as you pretend to be_ , Levi shot back in exaggerated, angry signs. 

Erwin’s world went white, then red. The pain he felt from the comment burned for a brief moment, then hardened into a rage like he’d never felt. He reached his hand back as if to slap Levi, and the boy stared up at him with furious defiance. They stayed like that for what had to be a few seconds, but it felt like an eternity, Erwin poised for violence, Levi unafraid, daring him with his eyes and the set of his lips. 

Finally, Erwin’s hand dropped, and he stomped angrily into the mudroom where he pulled on his boots and walked out the door, not pausing to see if Levi was following him. He stomped up to the lighthouse, each step feeling like betrayal. What the fuck was wrong with Levi, anyway, that he should not only blame the whole of mankind’s environmental transgressions on Erwin, but also imply that Erwin was playing up his disabilities somehow? The more he thought of it, the more his anger burned in his gut, uncontrollable and wild. The lighthouse was fine, it was always fine, and somehow that just made Erwin more furious. He needed to get away from Levi, needed to get off of the island before he ended up doing something that he didn’t want to, so he climbed into his boat and revved the engine a bit, just to annoy Levi. Though he had intended to go into town, he decided to fish instead; if nothing else, it would take his mind off of Levi and the maelstrom of doubt and rage that was making it’s home in his guts. 

He steered his boat into the ocean, taking care to cut the engine before he got too far from the little island. Angrily, he put his fishing gear in order, baiting his hooks and setting everything up while he waited for Mike to show himself. After an hour of nothing, the big man finally decided to come to him, his expression troubled. 

“Can you fucking…can you _believe_ he…” Erwin sputtered a bit more, huffed, and rubbed his hand over his face. 

“There’s a strange wind blowing,” Mike interjected, brows slightly raised. 

“It’s the ocean, Mike, there’s no shortage of wind,” Erwin spat out, wishing now that Mike would have stayed away. “I mean, maybe he doesn’t understand…the arm he understands, it’s easy to see, but the…the _rest_ of it. I don’t know. But that doesn’t make any sense, he’s helped…he’s supported me through panic attacks before, more than once, he may not understand TBI’s but he has to understand that there’s _something_ wrong, right? Something deeper than what he can see on the surface.”

He continued on like that, trying to ignore the fact that Mike was distracted, edgy, practically ignoring everything that he said. Mike’s apparent disinterest in what he was saying was just making him more angry, more keyed up, in fact his vision was beginning to go dark around the edges, his chest was starting to constrict, in fact he couldn’t really breathe, and he began to choke on the anger in his own words, and suddenly Mike’s full attention was on him again. “Hoss? Hoss, calm down, breathe, c’mon,” Mike’s voice, usually so deep and placid, was worried, the tone of it sounding less like the best friend he knew, sounding more like the voice he heard in his mind, the voice of his thoughts — his voice. 

“Shhh, you’ve got to calm down, there’s a strange wind.”

Erwin couldn’t understand why Mike was so obsessed with the wind when he was dying, he was _clearly_ dying, something was wet on his face, he felt like he was boiling in this ocean, like he was being boiled alive and crushed alive all at once. He gasped, clawed at the boat, heard a terrible scraping and clanging and realized that it was his hook on the side of his boat. Mike was saying his name again and again, and Erwin tried to hold onto that sound, tried to focus, but the world around him bent and shook, distorted like a reflection in a funhouse mirror, and finally went dark.

***

He awoke without any sense of the time that had passed; it could have been a minute, an hour, a day as far as he could tell. The first thing that he felt was a terrible heaviness in his chest, followed by a dull throbbing in the front of his skull. It was darker, somehow, and panic seized him again as he wondered how long he’d been out, but that thought was quickly replaced by the realization that he was thoroughly soaked. With a shout, he sat up, coming face to face with Mike. “It’s raining, Erwin, there’s a storm. Get back home, now.” 

Erwin sputtered, the reality of the situation coming at him in waves. 

“Hoss, _now_ , come on!” 

Mike’s urgency pushed through the fog that clouded Erwin’s brain, and he started the outboard motor on his little boat with shaky fingers and tried to spit out the metallic taste that filled his mouth. The rain was coming down in sheets, filling Erwin’s eyes and making it difficult to decipher where he was and which way to go. 

“Binoculars, Erwin,” Mike urged, and Erwin reached into his tackle box for them, hoping he wasn’t too far off course or too far from shore. All he could hear was the crashing of rain and wind, and the ocean was frothing angrily around him. Where the hell had the storm come from? Erwin forced himself into a place of rationality, pressing the binoculars to his eyes and looking around until — _there_ , right on the edge of the horizon — he found the lighthouse. He revved the engine and made as straight a line as he could for it, but the waves were tossing the boat around like a rag. Erwin felt steely, determined as he slipped into that part of him that was so determined to live, to keep breathing, to see another day. 

The rain was blowing sideways now, stinging his face, blinding him as his boat shuddered and shook in the waves. He was making progress, he was getting closer, trying to steer the boat toward the shore but it wasn’t really made for these types of waters. He realized that he was up to his ankles in water and tried to navigate through the worst of the waves, keeping the swooping light from his lighthouse as his guide. A wave rose up next to him and crashed over him and Erwin gasped, grabbing onto the side of the boat with his hand and hook, hoping to ride it out. The water pulled back, the boat rocking wildly; he took a quick inventory and saw that most of his equipment was gone, now. The emergency chest had a life preserver in it, but he couldn’t reach it unless he let go of the boat’s rudder, and his best hope for now was to make it to the shore. 

Erwin bit his lip and pressed on, pushing every thought from his mind except _just make it back, Hoss_ , which Mike seemed to be saying again and again and again, shouting over the rain, whispering like a mantra. He was making progress, getting closer, but another wave rose up and crashed over him, momentarily shattering his senses. Sputtering, he wiped furiously at his salt-stung eyes and tried to find the lighthouse again. _There_ , he was getting closer, he would make it, he had to…for Levi, if nothing else. A wave crashed up from behind him and, though his boat was taking on a dangerous amount of water, it also propelled him forward. Erwin felt like he might cry with relief — he could see it now, his little house, his island, and a pale slip of a boy running up and down the shore, mouth agape in a cry he knew to be soundless and terrified. 

“Levi!” he yelled, but his voice was whipped away by the merciless wind. Still, he pressed on steering the boat to the shore, terrified but fierce, determined. Finally, Levi caught sight of him, his hands fluttering over signs that Erwin couldn’t decipher with the rain in his eyes. He yelled again, yelled Levi’s name, yelled that he was coming to him, yelled that everything was going to be alright. He pulled closer to the shore, he was almost there, and he knew that he would need to run his boat aground, to forego the dock altogether, but that was fine. His losses could be recouped, as long as he made his way back to Levi. One hundred feet to go and he would be there, just one hundred feet, if only the damn waves would stop pushing him around. Frustrated, Erwin let out a loud stream of curses, pressing his way forward as quickly as he could, but pummeled by the waves on every side. Desperately, he tried to slosh water out of the boat before realizing that he needed his hand to steer, and his hook was useless in this endeavor. he would just have to keep pressing forward. 

He was close enough to make out Levi’s face, now, maybe fifty feet from the shore, and he could see the boys eyes, wide and terrified, his face drawn as his mouth worked silently. He was closer to the ocean than Erwin had ever seen him, ankle deep in the water that rose to his knees when then largest waves rolled in, his hair wind-whipped and wild. The sight of him so close warmed Erwin from within, and knew he would make it…he would reach the shore, this nightmare would end and everything would be fine. His lips stretched into a smile and he yelled that he was almost there, that he was going to be fine, he only had about thirty feet to go. But just as he finished yelling, Levi’s mouth pulled into a silent scream, and before he could ascertain what was wrong, a wall of water crashed over him, his hand slipping off the rudder, hook failing to connect.

He was in the ocean, waves pushing him down over and over again until his lungs burned, but he couldn’t get a breath, couldn’t get his eyes open long enough to see which way he needed to swim. All at once, he realized that he wasn’t going to make it, that he couldn’t possibly come through this, not this time…that the death he’d wished for so many times was about to be given to him, and there was nothing he could do to change that. His arm was too heavy, his clothing dragging him down as well, in a moment he wouldn’t be able to fight it anymore, in a moment his lungs would fill with ocean water and that would be the end of him. 

The irony wasn’t wasted on him — he had been given a reason to live, and now, his reason was on the shore, watching him drown. He wanted to laugh, to cry, but death, as it happened, left no time at all for hysterics. His head slipped beneath the waves, and though his hand grasped at the air for a moment, it slipped beneath the surface as well; he couldn’t swim, not like this, there was no point in trying, not really. With a sense of finality, with a sense of resignation, Erwin opened his mouth to breath in the water that would be the death of him. 

He couldn’t have predicted the mouth that pressed over his at just that moment, the fingers that pinched his nose, the small hand that grabbed his wrist and yanked him up and forward. His eyes were screwed firmly shut, but the mouth that filled his lungs with oxygen then was far too familiar to be mistaken for anyone else. 

_Levi_.


	3. Like a Phoenix From the Ash

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Do you think…with him, I could be whole?”
> 
> Mike was quiet, staring at the stars, and Erwin let the silence go on unbroken. Maybe Mike…maybe _he_ didn’t know. They were just two broken things, and sometimes Erwin was angry and sometimes Levi was sullen and maybe they had lost too much of themselves. Maybe they didn’t have enough left to give. But they belonged to one another, now, they were bonded in a way that they both knew was beyond words. Maybe the goal wasn’t making yourself whole…maybe it was just finding someone that you could hold onto tightly without leaving them ruined. 
> 
> Finally, Mike replied, “I think you’re better with him than without him.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everybody! 
> 
> This is the conclusion of Salt! I am sorry that it took so long to get this section out! Big, wonderful things happened in my life, and I was a bit waylaid. But here it is, I certainly hope it's worth the wait.
> 
> I appreciate comments and kudos more than I can express. I really, really hope that you guys enjoy this final chapter. 
> 
> Enjoy!

He’d meant what he said. Of course it was harsh, but sometimes he wondered if Erwin remembered that he was capable at all. Sometimes, it seemed that the man thought him a simpleton, and he supposed that was understandable, given the situation…the not being able to communicate, etc. Gestures reduced one to the most simple of expressions, and he’d never been one for verbal elegance. Levi’s elegance was in the way that he moved, it always had been. He’d enjoyed confusing soldiers with that once, gliding through the water and jumping through the air with powerful grace, only to lazily sling his arms over the side of the boat and make them blush with the filth he could spew from his mouth. He’d liked humans, but they had destroyed him. The irony was that they’d destroyed Erwin too, and here they were on this island. 

But he’d meant what he said. His tail had been beautiful, powerful, and sleek; he’d been able to cut through the water with quick strokes and practiced ease. He’d caught all of his own fish and he’d been a warrior in the wars of his people. He enjoyed talking to the men, enjoyed their bodies and their idiocy, but more than all he had enjoyed his power. He had power in his tail, in his looks, so much that he could insult and degrade the men to their faces and threaten to bite off their cocks and still they would present them, red faced and wind-whipped, for his lithe fingers. 

He’d lost all of that and his voice for his foolishness. Now he had weak little stick legs and the words he could make with his hands. Now he had no community, no family, no _people_ …just an island, and a beautiful, broken man who got him fish and kissed him and told him that he was a gift. And he liked that broken man. He liked him intensely, perhaps even loved him; Levi wasn’t sure what love was, only that humans went on about it ad nauseum and he’d used it more than once as an excuse to drown a man. But this golden-haired, sad-eyed creature that had breathed life into him and made him his own…he was different. He had lost too much, and now he wasn’t whole. But Levi wasn’t whole either. He was broken, he was missing parts, and he’d decided a long time ago to do whatever he needed to in order to live because when you stopped trying to live, that was the end. Levi wasn’t ready for the end quite yet. Maybe he never would be.

Erwin was. At least, he thought he was. Levi saw it in his eyes, heard it in his voice, in the mechanized way that he went about his routines. Levi had been trying to wake him ever since he’d come here, but whatever had him in it’s grips had him firmly entrenched, and though he had seemed to brighten considerably at times, the clouds that surrounded him never quite abated. Levi enjoyed their routine, to an extent. He’d needed to adjust to his new state anyway, and from what he’d managed to read in the books and magazines that Erwin procured for him, it might have been difficult in normal American society. But Erwin seemed content to languish here forever, to die here…and in fact, he seemed as though he would have preferred to die sooner rather than later, most days. Sex and routine weren’t enough to keep him alive. He needed something else, something that Levi wasn’t sure how to give him.

He hadn’t realized how frustrated he was becoming until that morning, hadn’t realized how it was building up and poisoning him. But he’d meant what he said; Erwin _played_ helpless. Of course his losses had been severe, but so had Levi’s. In some ways he was perfectly capable, and Levi wasn’t going to let him get away with pretending otherwise. Levi saw it very clearly, now; whatever Erwin couldn’t do, he could do. He had two arms, and he was stronger than he looked. Erwin had a voice, and knew the world of men. That left the simple matter of actually being capable of leaving the island.

And that’s where Levi felt his resolve stutter. 

Sometimes, while Erwin was away on trips into town, Levi would walk out to the end of the dock, slender legs trembling. _Jump off_ , his mind would whisper, but his body would be stiff, frozen with the weight of his terror. He couldn’t look at the ocean without remembering the feeling of his tail being ripped to shreds, the utter fear and confusion, the fire in his chest and throat. He didn’t know what they had taken from him…they hadn’t told him. The words of the old sea-witch had been that she would make him suffer justly for his foolishness. She hadn’t counted on Erwin plucking him off the beach like that; without him, Levi might have suffered to the extent that he deserved. As it were, he knew that his voice had been taken from him, that his gills appeared to be gone, and that his tail — his perfect, sleek, beautiful tail, the tail he used to flash at sailors to distract them, the tail that carried him through the water and up into the air in beautiful jumps and leaps — had been replaced by slender legs that Erwin liked to bite and bruise. Those legs…what good would they be in the ocean? If his gills were gone, how would his legs keep him afloat? Humans were terrible swimmers…he would be like one of them, now. He could die. And the sea witch…what if she had cursed him? 

It was a terrible thing, to take away someone’s life, but leave them living in another without instructions or clues regarding how to go about it. If he set foot in the ocean, it could rise up and swallow him and drag him down to crushing depths. Alternately, he might just paddle about like the humans did. The not-knowing was the worst part. He wanted to tell Erwin this, to explain it, especially when the man gave him those long, pitysome looks and all but begged him to go into town with him. But where to begin? He’d lost everything for getting too involved with men. Now he was relying on one for more or less everything, and he wasn’t even sure what he could say without incurring the wrath of the people he used to call his own.

Something would have to give. Erwin wasn’t really getting better, and Levi was starting to feel anxious. He didn’t want to be trapped on this god damned island by his own terror…it wasn’t like him, languishing in one place like this. He’d spent years exploring, seeing, doing, he knew wonders that men would kill to see, to acquire. The whole world was connected by the sea and the humans had only seen a fraction of it. He remembered the first vessel he’d caught sight of when he was just a boy — how far they’d come since then! He’d been South when the Titanic sank, but the whales had sung tales of it and he’d sifted through the wreckage, caressed the beautiful blue faces of those who had drowned, slipped jewels and pearls and gold from their necks and wrists to take back to his people. He’d met soldiers and sailors and immigrants, he’d drank with them and learned their languages and played their games and drowned a few of them, he’d found entire sunken ships and watched in wonder as the underwater volcanoes of his homeland exploded, he’d befriended whales and dolphins and even held congress with the brilliant, strange creatures that the men had never known, and now he was here on a grey island with a lighthouse and a broken man. It was gone, all of it, his people and his life and the wonder of the sea, and the thought of wetting his toes in the saltwater he’d once gulped down like life made his heart pound so loudly, made his stomach roil so spectacularly that he could hardly stand. 

He usually made his way off the dock on all fours.

Then Erwin would return, always with fish and magazines and treats for Levi, the two of them slipping back together, broken and jagged and clinging together for life. 

He’d meant what he said, but perhaps his frustration had nothing to do with Erwin at all. At least the man managed to leave the island once a week or so. Erwin was braver and better than Levi had ever been. Suddenly, Levi envied him terribly. 

And that was how he found himself rushing out to the beach with Erwin’s name on his silent lips, though he’d been stewing in the bed with the covers over his head for the better part of an hour. He ran back and forth nervously, plucking trash from the sand and disposing of it, looking for the little boat on the horizon and fretting when he couldn’t find it. He stepped up on to the dock, but only walked a few feet before his stomach began to do backflips, and he was forced to step back on to the sand. The air was strange, thick, sticky…Levi stripped off his shirt and let the sun beat against his pale skin. He fell back, arms spread wide, chest rising and falling as a breeze hot and wet as breath puffed over him. 

***

The first raindrop that hit his face was so warm that he almost didn’t notice it. His eyes opened a little bit at a time and he blinked blearily, wiping at the moisture on his face and frowning heartily. The darkness around him came as a belated realization, but one that sent an icy dagger through his guts. Angry clouds were piling up one atop the other, and he could hear the rumble of thunder breaking through the humid air. The breeze held a strange chill, and the sea was beginning to churn. His eyes flicked immediately to the dock, hoping against hope that Erwin had arrived back without his noticing, but the boat was still gone. Erwin was still gone. 

Images flashed through his head — bloated, drowned bodies and shipwrecks, the desperate faces of soldiers as sea and storm left them floating in the water, abandoned by their own technology in a world that they hardly knew or understood. Sometimes he pitied them and dragged them under, holding them gently while they drowned to make their deaths easier. The ocean held nothing good for men; it was a brutal and ancient world, one for which they were not at all equipped. Levi had always imagined it better that they drown, except now, except this time. This time it was Erwin. 

His teeth felt like they might break, his jaw was clenched so tightly, but try as his might, he couldn’t find the little boat amongst the waves. With a gasp, with a sob he pulled himself to his feet, his body moving without consulting his mind, pushing itself to run across the beach, to seek the lighthouse, to push up those winding stairs. The rain had forgone it’s warm, gentle drops in favor of sheets so thick that the lighthouse windows were coated instantly and thoroughly. Levi wanted to scream, but even now his throat would not cooperate, and what came from him was a choked sort of gasp that left his fisted hands shaking. _Focus_ , He commanded himself, and with a deep breath, he unlatched and threw open the lighthouse window. 

Rain pummeled him so hard, so fast that it stung his face, filled his eyes and mouth, soaked the floor in seconds. He needed help, needed something…he stepped back from the window and caught sight of the binoculars hanging there, remembered Erwin showing him where they were so he could find ships on the horizon. _Perfect_. He grabbed them and looked out over the sea, trying to see through the rain. It was agonizing, it was taking forever, and just when he’d nearly given up hope, soaked to the bone and shivering with fear and cold, he caught site of a little boat and a man desperately holding on to the side of it. _Erwin, oh jesus fuck,_ Levi thought to himself, and in a moment he was rushing down the lighthouse stairs, nearly tripping over his own bare feet but righting himself just in time to avoid tumbling down the stairs. His lungs were burning, heart pounding…what was he to do? What could he do? Jumping in the sea could be the death of them both if the sea witch was waiting for him, and even if she wasn’t, Erwin’s prosthesis was useless in the ocean. If he could only swim with one arm, how was Levi to get him to the shore? They could both drown in the process, but was there even an alternative? Levi ran back and forth, up and down the shore, hoping against hope that Erwin would come into view, that he would be fine. Before he knew it, the water was lapping at his ankles, but it hardly registered over the icy terror spreading through him.

 _There_ , there he was, and Levi felt his eyes stinging with unbidden tears as he waved, as he signed desperately again and again, _Please, please, Erwin, please_. He watched, helpless, horrified, and hoping against all hope that Erwin could cling to the boat, that the boat could reach the shore, and as he came closer and closer it seemed that he might make it. And there he was, so close, so incredibly close, and just as he smiled, his mouth working in words that Levi could neither hear nor understand, a wave rose up behind him big enough to push him over, boat and all, and Levi felt his heart ripping free from his body as he tried to scream, tried to warn, and then the wave was crashing over him, pulling him under, the boat capsizing completely. Levi didn’t think, didn’t breath, just moved, crashing into the water headlong, consequences be damned.

He was on fire, searing pain in his neck feeling as though it might separate his head from his body; it was the sea witch, he was sure of it, the curse she’d placed upon him to end him if he ever set foot in the ocean again. How fitting, he thought, that the sea that gave him life should take that life back, should take the life of the man who’d saved him too, just for good measure. 

But the burning stopped, his body was still moving, his head was still attached, and somehow he was breathing…he was _breathing_. The realization hit Levi with force sufficient enough to shock him into swimming; he had his gills. She hadn’t taken his gills, or the sea had returned them to him so that he could repay Erwin for saving his life, it didn’t matter, he couldn’t think about it now, he just swam toward the scent of the man in the water. It wasn’t like when he had a tail, he was still in the body of a human, his legs limited by their size and function, but he could _breathe_ at least, he could smell Erwin, he was going to save him, there was simply nothing else he could do. He was diving, kicking his legs in unison to propel himself toward the bottom as Erwin sank below him. _Fight, dammit!_ his mind screamed, but Erwin had given himself up to the sea; Levi could see it in the calm of his face. 

_No._ Erwin’s mouth opened just as Levi grasped him, and he pressed his own lips to Erwin’s, breathed air that his lungs had distilled from the sea, air that Erwin desperately needed. All at once, that big, familiar arm clapped around him, clung to him, and Levi kicked desperately, trying to take them toward the surface, toward the shore. But his legs weren’t strong enough to propel them both and Erwin was heavy. Levi breathed into his mouth again, tugged at his arm, tried to tell him any way he could that he had to help, that he had to fight, that Levi could do this but not alone, not without him. His legs and arms were burning and he dug his nails into the side of Erwin’s neck, desperate and terrified. 

Finally, as though waking from a nightmare, Erwin jolted and began swimming with all his might. Levi nodded and pulled him in the right direction, leading him toward the shore, toward safety and shelter. It felt as though they would never make it, it felt as though their little island, their little home was a million miles away, but just as Levi’s arms and legs began to burn and seize, he felt sand beneath his feet.

_They had made it._

They emerged from the waves coughing and sputtering and for a moment, Levi felt as though he’d forgotten how to breath. His neck burned hot and then he was drawing deep, gulping breaths, and Erwin was as well, and they collapsed in the sand and rain and clung to one another and Erwin was laughing and Levi couldn’t be sure if he was crying, there was so much rain, but they were alive. They were _alive_.

***

Levi was only partially aware of the world around him, his chest brimming, full to bursting and achingly empty all at once, his mind spinning and blank as he panted and shook and closed his eyes and let the rain wash over him. It came to him, eventually, that Erwin was shaking, that they needed to get inside, though his legs felt like kelp beneath him. By sheer force of will, he managed to pull himself up off the ground, managed to tug at Erwin until they were both standing, managed to walk to the house, strip off their clothing (and Erwin’s prosthesis) in the mudroom, and then (Levi insisted), make their way to the shower. Finally, warm, damp, and exhausted, they collapsed into bed and slept, legs wound together, Levi clinging to Erwin like a barnacle, his head pressing into the thick expanse of his chest. 

Levi stirred first, disoriented and dry-mouthed, his stomach growling as if he’d not eaten in days. For a moment, he thought that it really might have been days since they collapsed in this bed together, and as his heart pounded away at his ears, he reached for Erwin’s neck, felt his pulse, leaned an ear over his slightly-opened mouth.

All was well. They were both warm, alive, and breathing.

 _Miraculous_.

It was a word he had learned once when a sailor saw him and whispered it aloud. It had taken him awhile to understand it and he rarely felt compelled to use it, but today…today, it fit. He wondered what the sign was for “miracle”. He wanted to press it into Erwin’s skin. 

His stomach gave a painful growl and Levi grimaced and tried to slip out of bed unnoticed. Of course that was the moment that Erwin stirred and groaned, and though Levi tried to stay very still in the dark of the room, he soon felt Erwin’s hand pass up his arm, heard him murmur, “Levi?”

He passed his fingers over Erwin’s mouth to tell him that he was awake before reluctantly reaching for the lamp by the bed. He flipped the switch and light flooded the room, each of them wincing a bit before their eyes adjusted. 

_I’m hungry,_ he signed, _You can sleep though, if you need to._

 _No,_ Erwin replied, _I’m hungry too._ There was something else there, too, though he didn’t say it with his hands or mouth…it was in his eyes. Levi didn’t have to confirm it to understand, he just nodded and stretched, arching his back this way and that with feline grace before sliding off the bed and padding to the kitchen, Erwin in tow. A lifetime ago, before the storm, he’d set a fish to thaw as if it were any other day. He felt Erwin’s stare on him as he picked that fish up now and bit into it with relish, barely pausing to chew before having another bite, and then another. Finally, he signed, _stop staring and get something to eat, old man._ He heard Erwin sigh, but a moment later he was bustling around the kitchen pulling together one of those disgusting things he called a sandwich. They ate together in silence, but sometimes Levi could feel Erwin’s eyes on him, and he would let his own eyes drift up, and Erwin would look away quickly. He stood, washed his hands and face of blood and scales, and made his way back to Erwin. 

_Make room_ , he signed, and then pushed himself into Erwin’s lap, his head finding a spot on Erwin’s chest as his arms twined up around his neck. Erwin’s body shuddered beneath him and Levi smiled into his chest, secret and small. Erwin’s arm wrapped around him tightly and they stayed like that for some time, breathing one another in, each lost in a private world of their their own thoughts. Finally, Levi was shaken from his by the rumble of Erwin’s voice through his chest, the familiar syllables of his name tumbling off of Erwin’s tongue. 

_What?_ he signed with one hand, unwilling to move more than was strictly necessary. 

“I…I think it’s time for you to tell me your story.”

Levi stiffened slightly, though he wasn’t sure why. He’d promised Erwin that he would tell him that night, the same night that he’d crawled into Erwin’s bed. Each of them had saved the other’s life, leaving them intertwined in a way that was sacred, now, not only by the traditions of Levi’s family but, he suspected, in their minds and bodies. They shared life and breath and near-death, but Levi still felt an icy fear wending through his veins at the thought of telling Erwin his story, not because he doubted him, but because of the potential, unknowable consequences. Nevertheless, a promise was a promise. He sat back and stared into Erwin’s eyes, blue as a summer sky, and nodded. 

What followed was a mix of signs, written words, and a few drawings, but eventually Levi was able to articulate his story, this way and that. First he told Erwin of his people; this was the hardest part, as there was no English vocabulary beyond the piteously inadequate “Mermaid” to describe them. They had a language all their own, an ancient language that could call forth life from the depths, rouse volcanos and send waves crashing against the shore. They had legends, myths, and magic, things forgotten by time and land and humanity but preserved in the ancient, unknowable depths of the sea. They held congresses with the other ancient creatures of the deep and shared the stewardship of the sea. There were creatures that men had never seen, had never dreamt of, and Levi tried to sketch them, but had to admit that he couldn’t do them justice. Erwin would never understand him if he couldn’t fathom what he’d lost. 

Next, Levi told him of himself, his adventurous spirit, his need to explore. Most of his people refused to breach the surface when the humans were present, but Levi was different…he didn’t see any reason why he shouldn’t go where he wanted and speak with whoever he pleased. His thirst for knowledge was matched only by his lust for adventure and apathy toward danger; though he was told repeatedly that he was going to get himself into terrible trouble, he didn’t care a bit. He swam the sea, spoke to sailors and scientists and soldiers, learned their languages and minds. He neglected to mention those he seduced and later drowned…he’d promised to tell Erwin his story, but he didn’t have to tell him _every_ detail, did he? 

Erwin asked a few questions, but mostly just watched his hands, his face. Finally, Levi felt as though he had given him enough explanation to understand what came next. He took a deep breath, swallowed, and closed his eyes. Erwin’s hand came up and rested on his cheek. 

_I hope it’s not too painful,_ he signed, Talking about what happened.

 _It’s fine,_ Levi replied. He took a deep breath, and then he began. 

_It started with a scientist. I didn’t know that he was a scientist, he was just someone on a sailboat who saw me swimming around one night. I showed him my tail and he got all interested in me, but I was used to that. So we talked at night, and he…liked spending time with me, and I figured I would follow him from port to port until I got bored. But after we stopped at a port off of the American coast, he brought me a gift. It was a necklace, lots of gemstones. I liked it, and I accepted it, but when I took it home…_

Levi paused and frowned up at Erwin. He hated this part of the story. It make him feel pathetic. But Erwin had taken him in and provided for him for months now without accusing him of being pathetic. Perhaps he wouldn’t be too disgusted by his former idiocy. 

_Anyway, the necklace was a trick. I took it back to my people to show them, and the scientist followed me in a submarine. He nearly found our home. They killed him and turned me over to the sea witch. She told me I was lucky that they told her not to kill me, and then….you woke me._

He didn’t realize that tears were escaping his eyes until Erwin’s thumb swiped over his cheek. He sniffed, frowned, and rubbed at his eyes with the back of his hands. _I couldn’t be sure…about the ocean, what would happen to me if I…so I just didn’t go into it._

A strange look passed over Erwin’s face. _So, when you jumped into the water?_ he signed, and Levi nodded. 

_I didn’t know…what would happen. But apparently my gills still work_.

Erwin looked at him for a long moment, then he took Levi’s face in his hands and pressed his lips gently to his forehead. Levi sighed and allowed it for a few seconds, but then began wiggling away. 

“Levi,” Erwin half-whispered, “Thank you.”

Levi looked up at him and their eyes locked, and suddenly all of the air in room seemed as thick and palpable as the sea. _You can never leave me now,_ he finally signed, and Erwin pressed him into a kiss that held a promise greater than any words could convey.

***

The prosthesis was ruined. 

Perhaps not entirely ruined, or at least Erwin hoped not — a replacement would set him back several thousand dollars — but at least damaged to the point that it would require some repair. Levi noticed immediately. 

_You must see the doctor_ , he signed after watching Erwin struggle with the damn thing. 

_I can’t,_ Erwin signed back. This began a long, spirited discussion which eventually set Levi stomping about and cleaning furiously for hours. Erwin wandered around the island trying to think of ways to look busy, but hunger got the better of him and he eventually skulked back into the house. Levi was waiting for him, a cloth tied around his head, a feather duster in his hand. Erwin could hardly help himself, and went in to wrap Levi up in his arm, but that lithe little body twisted from his grasp expertly and Erwin was left hugging the air and feeling ridiculous. 

_I don’t suffer fools_ , Levi signed, resolutely using a phrase he’d read in one of Erwin’s books. He could feel his temper boiling up, could feel the world beginning to go white. He’d never been quick-tempered before the blast, and his inability to quell his rages now, even with Levi, made them even more destructive. He stomped off and railed at Mike as they made their way around the island several times, then finally, as the sun was setting, he made his way back home. Levi was waiting for him, the house spotless, and he felt suddenly and terribly guilty. He poured three fingers of whiskey into a glass and took it with him to the bedroom, stripping off his clothes and collapsing somewhat inelegantly into the bed. Time passed, as always, and eventually, he heard the door open. A few seconds later, the bed moved, and then a small hand pressed into his arm. Erwin looked up and found Levi’s eyes with his own. 

_I’ll go with you,_ he signed. _You don’t have to do this alone._

Erwin held him tightly then and he shook and shook, but his eyes, as ever, remained dry.

***

The trip into the city came all too soon. Erwin had gone over every detail of it again and again: the appointment was at eleven in the morning. They would take the canoe across the bay since he had yet to replace the boat, and then take the train into the city. He had written the route down, though he didn’t use his usual symbols because he wanted Levi to be able to understand it. He was only meeting with his general doctor and the prosthetic specialist, _not_ the therapist, that had been a point of compromise. When they were done, they could take the train and then canoe home. Simple. Easy. No big deal at all. Of course. 

…and of course, the night before it all, he couldn’t sleep. Of course, he tossed and turned and sweated and stared at Levi who, he was convinced, was only pretending to sleep. Finally, frustrated, with his stomach turning somersaults and his mind racing, he got out of bed and padded out to the beach in bare feet and pj pants. The moon was big and full, and the crashing of the waves soothed him ever so slightly. He sat down on the sand a safe distance from where the tide was coming in and stared up at the stars, the lighthouse bathing him in light at steady intervals. It was the steadiness in everything — the tide came in and out, the light swept across the sand, the stars and moon casting their cold silver across his skin — that finally managed to make his stomach stop it’s churning. Levi had never been into the city before, but they had looked at maps together and gone over the names of the trains again and again. They would be fine. 

“He’s gonna blow you away, Hoss,” Mike reassured him, and he was holding an inexplicable beer in his hand, a smile on his face. “He’s gonna get you there and back so fast you’ll wonder why you were ever such a baby about it.”

“Fuck off, Mike,” Erwin shot back, cuffing the man’s arm with a smile. It used to confuse him that he could feel Mike, warm and alive, but they’d been talking for so long that he no longer felt mystified by it. 

Mike laughed, took a swig of his beer, then laid back and looked up at the stars with his deep, wise eyes. “You know, if this goes well…”

“Don’t say it,” Erwin whispered fervently. He laid back next to Mike, and they fell into silence for several minutes. 

“Are you worried? It’ll be the first time anyone besides you has seen him…”

“We talked about how he needs to keep his mouth closed, but since he can’t speak, it’s not as much of a concern. His gills only come out in water and other than that…you’d never know.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

Erwin breathed for a moment, letting the cool night air blow over him as he considered how to respond. Finally, he simply said, “No.”

“What changed?”

“I couldn’t have pulled myself from the waves.”

Mike nodded, and silence settled between them again. A question was perched on the tip of Erwin’s tongue, and he let his jaw clench and unclench in turn, but his mouth remained closed until, finally, Mike said, “Just ask, Hoss.”

“Do you think…with him, I could be whole?”

Mike was quiet, staring at the stars, and Erwin let the silence go on unbroken. Maybe Mike…maybe _he_ didn’t know. They were just two broken things, and sometimes Erwin was angry and sometimes Levi was sullen and maybe they had lost too much of themselves. Maybe they didn’t have enough left to give. But they belonged to one another, now, they were bonded in a way that they both knew was beyond words. Maybe the goal wasn’t making yourself whole…maybe it was just finding someone that you could hold onto tightly without leaving them ruined. 

Finally, Mike replied, “I think you’re better with him than without him.”

“Yeah,” Erwin sighed, a warmth growing deep in his chest, “I really am.”

***

They left before dawn the next morning, hoping to avoid seeing anyone in town who knew Erwin. He could come back that night and introduce Levi as a friend who was coming to stay with him, and no one would ask too many questions….especially if they couldn’t sign. Levi rowed the canoe, but demanded that Erwin get a new boat as soon as possible; the bay was wider than it looked, and by the time they reached the shore Levi was sweating, even in the morning cool. They snuck through town without a peep, made their way to the train platform, and waited for the first train of the day. 

_Are you nervous?_ Erwin signed.

 _Not really,_ Levi replied, _But you are._

Erwin scoffed and shook his head, but it was a bluff. His heart hadn’t stopped pounding since they’d left the house that morning. Spending so long tucked away on his island had made his agoraphobia even more pronounced. The thought of walking down the bustling city streets sent daggers through his chest. Even so he pulled on his most perfect smile and Levi looked away, his dubiousness quite palpable. Erwin fixed his eyes on a tree across the tracks and kept them there until the train came roaring up to the platform. Levi’s eyes were as wide as saucers as they stepped on board. “You’ll want to hold on to something,” He said, realizing all at once how strange land travel would be. Levi nodded, his jaw set, and wrapped his arms quite tightly around Erwin. 

He couldn’t help but smile, and he reached up to grasp one of the loops hanging from the ceiling as Levi pressed his face against his chest. Before the train pulled away from the platform, he craned his neck down and kissed the top of Levi's head, smiling into his silken hair. Something about Levi clinging to him like that made him feel settled and _right_ in a way that he couldn’t really define. It was the solidarity of the action and the way that Levi’s hair smelled faintly of salt, soap, and sea. Perhaps he’d made a home in Levi, so that he could stand to leave the confines of their little island as long as those sweet arms could twine their way around him, and long as he could bury his nose in that silky dark hair and inhale, pull Levi into him and center himself around that steady heartbeat, around those stormy grey eyes. It struck him all at once that Levi was, in a very real way, his entire life. He could no longer fathom a world in which he existed and Levi did not. He could no longer fathom a life that didn’t include Levi, a life where he ate his meals alone, cared for his lighthouse alone…a life in which he didn’t push himself into that warm wetness while he watched those soft lips make silent cries around double rows of razor sharp teeth. 

His life was not enhanced by Levi, it _was_ Levi. And as long as they were together this way, there were no impossibilities. 

_Hey_ , Levi tapped at his face, _Where are you?_

 _I’m here,_ Erwin signed back, pressing a soft kiss to his forehead, then bending down to find his lips as he whispered aloud, “I’m right here with you.”

***

The high created by that realization lasted until they reached the hospital. It loomed large above them and Levi’s eyes were as wide as saucers, his fingers flying with observations. He managed to keep his mouth closed, however, and for that, Erwin was grateful. With the levels of body modification that people went to regularly, he assumed that anyone who caught sight of Levi’s teeth would assume that they were implants. However, you couldn’t be too careful…especially when the boy had no documentation. The building itself was impressive, the original architecture dating back centuries, but it had been updated and extended over several city blocks. People bustled in an out of the great glass doors in a nearly steady stream, some of them in scrubs, some of them on crutches or in wheelchairs. Erwin flexed his fingers and swallowed thickly, trying to recapture the confidence he’d found on the train amidst the spinning of his mind, the clenching of his gut. Levi’s hand slipped up, two fingers pressing into Erwin’s neck with deft precision. 

_Your heart is beating fast,_ he signed, a frown tugging at his lips. 

_Yeah, I know_ , Erwin signed back with a grimace.

 _Come,_ Levi signed, and then he took Erwin’s hand and took him over to a bench, gesturing him to sit. Erwin began to protest, but Levi shot him a warning look so sharp it stopped him in his tracks, and he sat without another word of protest. _Okay,_ Levi started, staring into his eyes with absolutely perfect determination. _Tell me about the people._

 _Tell you what about them?_ Erwin signed back, brows furrowed.

 _Anything that you can. Make it up, I don’t care. Tell me their stories._

_Okay._ Erwin signed, unsure of where to begin, but Levi was staring at him with such guileless expectation that he had to at least try. The people streamed out of the doors, and he stared at each of them in turn until one in particular caught his eye. _This one_ , he said, pointing at a man who appeared to be shouting into midair about a stock portfolio. Erwin could see the bluetooth headset in his ear, but was still quite amused at the visual. _He’s a stock broker, I think. Three kids and a wife. The third kid was a mistake._

 _How do you have a kid by mistake?_ Levi signed, a horrified expression on his face. Erwin couldn’t help but laugh at that, but he signed back, _Humans are very fertile creatures._ From the way that Levi was staring at him, Erwin realized that human copulation was unlikely to be a subject he was familiar with. He tried to quell the smile on his face as he signed, _I’ll explain the birds and bees to you when we go home. I don’t want to make those signs in public._

Levi huffed and crossed his arms, turning his haughty little nose up in air a bit as he signed, _Well? Go on._

_Okay,_ Erwin replied, and on he went, telling the story of the stock broker and how he had lost everything a few years back, and how he was getting an ulcer and trying to rebuild his wealth before his bright, firstborn daughter got accepted into Harvard, his alma mater. After that he told the story of an older couple that hobbled out of the hospital together, each of them on their own walker, heads down but turning to share small, secretive smiles. Erwin spun a tale that they had immigrated from Europe when they were young, had come to America to seek a better life. He told of how they had started in a tiny walkup apartment with no kitchen and slept on the floor, and how they had never been wealthy, but they had carved a life for themselves and their children. 

_Does that happen?_ Levi asked, his expression skeptical. 

_Supposedly,_ Erwin shrugged. _It’s called “The American Dream”._ Levi pursed his lips and turned his gaze back to the crowd. _Another?_

Erwin found a man walking down the street, an enormous pack on his back, his skin weathered and deeply tanned, an old, dusty fisherman’s hat covering his head as if it, instead of hair, had grown there. He spun a tale of the man’s travels, of how he’d ridden the rails all over America and seen things other’s had only dreamt of. How he’d wandered lost in the desert for nearly two days before he found his way back to the train tracks and how he’d learned how to forage for roots and bugs when times were tough. The level of fascination in Levi’s eyes should have been a warning sign, but still Erwin continued on, describing the man’s adventures in the mountains, in the plains, in the bustling cities of America, of his time spent in the forests and plains and even the frozen tundras of Canada, of his long journey through the deserts of Mexico all the way down to the rain forests and back again. He went on this way for nearly half an hour, and it wasn’t until he looked at his watch that he realized they were going to be late to his appointment.

They got up and made their way inside, and vaguely, Erwin was aware that his pulse had returned to its regular rate, even though his heart skipped a bit when Levi twined their fingers together. With a deep breath and a squeeze of Levi’s hand, he passed through the door.

***

The prosthetist stared at Erwin’s damaged prosthetic arm, a frown creasing his features. “You fell out of the boat?” 

“I did,” Erwin replied, looking over at Levi in time to see him rolling his eyes. 

“Would it be too much to ask that you…not do that? Ever again?”

“I’ll do my best.” 

Dr. Ashland laughed, but they both knew that he was only half joking. “Look, doctor…is it salvageable?”

“It is, but it’s going to take some work. Think you can live without it for a few weeks?”

“I guess I’ll have to,” Erwin sighed. 

“At least now you have…your…helper,” The doctor offered with a nod toward Levi. Erwin opened his mouth to offer another label, something more accurate at least, before he realized that truly…he didn’t have one. They had never made any declarations or clarifications about their relationship to one another because it had never really seemed important. He realized that his mouth was open, and both the doctor and Levi were staring at him expectantly. 

“Ah, uh, yes. Yes I do.” 

Erwin’s stomach twisted, and though the doctor nodded and began to go into some lengthy explanation of exactly what would need to be done to fix his prosthesis, he found himself blurting out quite suddenly, “Partner.” 

“Ah, sorry, pardon me?” Dr. Ashland asked, brows slightly raised.

“He’s my partner, not just…my helper. Although he does that too.”

“Oh. Well, that’s…wonderful. I’m glad, Erwin. You seem…happier.”

“I am,” Erwin replied, a warmth spreading through him. “I really am.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught Levi’s small, secretive smile. 

***

Overall, the visit went smoothly. After the prosthetist, Erwin had to see his primary care doctor, but since he’d elected not to visit the therapist, they were done with the hospital by noon. Normally, Erwin would have rushed home as quickly as he could, but he had been seized by an idea. As they walked toward the doors, he stopped, asked Levi to wait right there, and made his way over to the front desk. A few minutes later, he had directions to what she had billed as the best sushi in the area. 

_Where are you taking me?_ Levi asked as they walked away from the direction of the subway that would take them to the train. 

_To a restaurant I think you’ll enjoy,_ Erwin signed back, unable to quell his smile. 

Levi walked beside him for awhile, navigating the crowded sidewalk with an inscrutable expression. Finally, he tapped Erwin to get his attention and signed, _Fine, but they better have something besides sandwiches._

Erwin chuckled as he signed back, _I promise they do_.

The walk to the restaurant took about ten minutes. It was bustling with the lunch rush when they arrived, the sushi chefs working with unbelievably quick precision behind glass panes. Erwin smelled the air and didn’t even detect a hint of fish, just the warm smell of miso broth and steam. 

“Mind sitting at the bar?” The hostess asked. 

“Not at all,” Erwin replied. Truth was, he preferred it. As they took their seats, he saw Levi’s eyes go wide. 

_Fish?_ he signed, tipping his head toward the chefs. 

_Raw fish, just the way you like it,_ Erwin replied with a smile. Levi smirked and began poking at his chopsticks. 

_You’re trying to be charming,_ he finally signed, and Erwin laughed aloud. 

_No, I am being charming_ , he signed back. A faint blush dusted over Levi’s cheeks and he shot back a quick, _Whatever, asshole._. Erwin just grinned. 

Erwin ordered for them, and they watched as the sushi chefs chopped and sliced, constructing rolls and perfect pieces of fish draped over little pillows of rice. Erwin reached over and slipped his hand over Levi’s, who squirmed until he had their fingers interlocked. His hand felt so small, so perfect, and Erwin couldn’t help his smile. 

“I haven’t been out like this in…years,” he murmured to Levi, “Not since the accident, I…”

 _I told you that you didn’t have to do this alone,_ he signed back, a suggestion of smugness in the shape of his lips. 

“I know,” Erwin said, smiling back at him. “I just…didn’t expect it to go so smoothly.” Somewhere in the back of his mind, Mike was saying, “I told you so.” They weren’t out of the city yet, of course, but Erwin could have insisted that they return home, yet he had felt good enough to come here; a miracle in itself. He felt triumphant, strong, free in a way he’d not even realized he was missing. 

The food arrived, and Erwin was given the unique joy of teaching Levi how to use chopsticks. Of course, by the time their check arrived, Levi was picking up everything with such deft precision that the sushi chefs gave him a cup of hot sake to celebrate. They left the restaurant and made their way to the train, hand in hand. 

***

The trip home was shockingly uneventful. Levi had memorized the route and Erwin let him guide him through the subway and then the trains, let him find the connections and lead him to the right platforms. It was incredible, really, that he could navigate everything so deftly based on maps and timetables. Erwin found himself strangely proud, both of himself and of Levi, and also utterly exhausted. Nevertheless, he took Levi around the little bay town, introduced him as an old friend who’d recently gotten back in touch, and arranged to rent a boat until he could get insurance to replace the one he’d lost in the storm. He picked up some fishing equipment as well as groceries before they set back to their little island. For the first time, Mike wasn’t on the boat with him. For the first time, he didn’t feel the fingers of dread creeping up his spine, the tingling in his extremities, the tightness in his chest, the churning in his guts. He knew better than to assume he was fine, that the pain and the anxiety and the doubt was gone…but Levi had an equalizing effect on him that he couldn’t really explain. 

They got back to the island, secured the boats, and went about their usual chores quietly. Erwin assumed that Levi must have been as exhausted as he was from their foray into the city, and when they finally settled down to their dinners, they ate with hardly so much as a sign or word between them. They showered and settled into bed early, Erwin slipping a sleeping pill under his tongue because such a successful day shouldn’t be ended with too much bravado. He dropped off, exhausted but full, a ray of hope sliding through his usual array of thoughts and feelings as sleep overtook him.

***

As Erwin’s consciousness returned, realizations dawned on him slowly, pushing through the syrupy haze of drugged sleep. Levi was there. Levi was shaking him, hard. Levi was shaking him and it was still dark outside. Without warning, Erwin shot up and barked out, “What’s wrong?” So loud that Levi toppled over with a gasp before signing, _Nothing, nothing, I just need to talk to you and you wouldn’t wake up._

Erwin stared at him for a moment, his perfect beautiful miracle of a boy, and felt an annoyance so acute he felt a momentary shock of rage. “Levi,” he said, trying to keep his voice measured, “I was _asleep_ , it’s…not a good idea to wake me up like that.” 

_Whatever, calm your shit_ , Levi signed flippantly. _This is important, doesn’t mean there’s something wrong, asshole._

Erwin sighed, scrubbed his hand over his face, and shook his head quickly, trying to clear his mind of sleep and adrenaline and anger. Levi waiting patiently while he took deep, slow breaths and gathered himself. Finally, he looked at Levi and signed, _What was so important?_

Levi looked around for a moment, chewing on his lips and lifting his hands to sign three times before he actually started. Erwin felt pangs of frustration, but did his best to school his features into a patient expression. He knew, logically, that his anger was unwarranted, but a massive dump of adrenaline like that was either going to throw him into rage or terror, and Levi didn’t seem to consider that one bit. Still, he counted his breaths and took them slowly while he waited for Levi’s response. Finally, he began.

_When I was…in the sea, I went everywhere, I saw everything. I talked to everyone and I…after today, I realized I can’t stay here. Anymore. I can’t stay on this island anymore._

Erwin felt like a white-hot knife had just been pushed through his chest straight into his heart. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t do anything but stare at Levi, wide-eyed and open-mouthed. Levi stared right back at him, wide-eyed as well, brows raised as if waiting for his approval, but Erwin’s vision was clouding, his hand — no, his whole body — was shaking, his mind spinning into overdrive, a turbine, a centrifuge shooting out one single thought distilled into one word:

_No._

It started as a sign and developed into a strained gasp, “No, Levi, no no no no,” and Erwin couldn’t breath, and Levi’s hands were all over him and he was signing frantically, pressing signs into his skin, his mouth working and working but unable to form words, and Erwin couldn’t breathe, just gasp at him and grasp at him, just beg him, the utter shift throwing him into a panic, desperate for survival but unsure of whether he should fight or fly. Levi fisted his shirt and shook him, dug his nails into his skin, pushed and pulled at him, and Erwin was flailing, all of the sudden he felt something impact his cheek, heard the noise of flesh hitting flesh, felt the sting of a slap as if every sensation was reaching out to him from another world, another reality. He gasped, his hand dropping from Levi and reaching up to land on a cheek that throbbed crimson with the pain of the slap. His eyes slipped up to meet Levi’s gaze, and Levi took that chance to start signing again, his fingers moving so fast that Erwin could hardly keep up. 

_I didn’t mean without you, Erwin, you dumb piece of shit, I want you to come too._

Erwin stared at him utterly dumbfounded, completely turned around, upside down, inside out, wrecked against the rocks of his trauma, eyes large and mouth snapping shut. 

_I want…to be like the vagabond, the one who rode the trains, except maybe not with trains, because of your arm…but I want to see it, I want to see everything. I’ve spent nearly two centuries exploring the sea, Erwin, I want to know what this world has to offer, and I don’t want to be trapped on an island by my own terror._ He paused, took Erwin’s hand in his own, and stared straight into his eyes, signing with his free hand, _Do you? Really? Do you really want to stay here for the rest of your life, waiting to die alone? Humans don’t live very long, and I don’t know how much longer I will live, now that…now that I’m more human than fish. Can you really stand it, Erwin?_ He reached up and grasped Erwin’s shoulder, shaking him sharply. _Well, can you?_

Somehow, Erwin drew a breath into his aching lungs, his whole body shaking violently as his arm slipped around Levi, as he pulled him close, Levi’s legs straddling his hips as Erwin pressed his face into that slight torso, breathing in his scent, feeling his heartbeat pounding through his chest, telling himself over and over to calm down, just _calm the fuck down_ , but his heart felt like it would burst right through his chest. Finally, _finally_ he managed to gasp out, “Levi, don’t leave me, please, for fucks sake, you can’t, you _can’t_ , you can’t leave me, Levi…” he lost track then, babbling more of the same and nothing at all, feeling Levi’s body, warm and solid, in his grasp, the weight of him the only thing that was keeping Erwin from spinning out completely. Levi allowed himself to be so grasped for what felt like hours, allowed Erwin’s breath to come at more regular intervals, waited for the trembling and shaking to slow, to stop. Finally, finally he pushed back slightly and fixed Erwin’s red-rimmed eyes with his own. 

_Erwin,_ he signed solemnly, _I won’t leave you, but you must,_ he paused for emphasis, his signs coming down strong, clear, _You must come with me. Trust me, join me, explore the world with me and I will never leave you as long as you live. But you can’t keep me here._

“Why?” Erwin shuddered out, cupping Levi’s cheek in his hand, “I…I thought you were happy here?”

 _I always have been,_ Levi signed back urgently, _But the witch took my tail and my voice…not my…what would it be called? My…soul? My spirit? She didn’t take my spirit. You can’t let that bomb take yours._

Erwin gasped as something clawed it’s way up his throat, as it filled his chest, and before he could stop to understand what was happening a sob had escaped his mouth. It was as if a damn had broken, and once it began he could not control it, could not stop it. The sobs that wracked his body were unrelenting, and Levi pulled him close and then, when it was clear that this storm would not pass quickly, pulled him down to the bed. Erwin gasped and sobbed with pain he’d hardly known he’d been carrying, the weight of it all falling against him at once, the whole of it with such force that he wasn’t sure what he was feeling or even, really, what the exact reason was for his tears. It was everything though, all of it…the bomb, the discharge, Mike, his brother, Levi, the storm, the loneliness, the feeling and the lack thereof, everything and nothing, all. He cried until his tears had exhausted themselves, cried until he felt weightless and formidable, decimated and solid, ancient and new.

Some time later the light broke through the windows and it occurred to Erwin that Levi was lying next to him and petting his hair gently, his mouth moving in a silent reassurance. He wanted to hide, wanted to crawl away and never be seen again by anyone, seduced away from the confines of life by the tender call of self-pity. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, shame creeping over him. “You can go. If you want.”

Levi stared at him for a moment before rolling his eyes and signing, _I should fucking slap you again, idiot. You had your tears. Now you can come with me._

“Where will we go?”

_Anywhere. Everywhere. I want to see everything._

“What about your papers?”

 _What about them? We can figure it out._

He was so sure…so small, so fierce, and so _sure_. Erwin was wrung out, exhausted, and ruined…and yet he smiled, a smile that started out as hardly a twitch at the corner of his mouth, but when Levi caught it and returned it, it only grew. He felt like a pile of ash, but some part of him was stretching, twitching…. _reborn_.

“Okay,” he whispered. “Alright, Levi. I’ll join you.”

 _Of course you will,_ Levi smiled back, razor-sharp teeth slipping into his lopsided grin. _I knew you would._

***

People were staring; they always did when Levi dressed himself. Erwin could hardly blame them, after all, the boy was wearing leggings covered in stars and galaxies, a lavender fishnet shirt, pink heart-shaped sunglasses and black steel-toed workboots. Erwin could never decide if American fashion eluded Levi or if he stayed effortlessly ahead of the curve. Either way, everywhere they went people assumed that he was Someone Important, and more so in small towns than in large cities. Now they stood outside a gas station on a dusty road, a Route 66 Official Map spread out on the hood of the small RV that had become their home. 

They were, as it happened, hopelessly lost. Levi had read in a brochure that there was an old fashioned freak show somewhere around here and wanted to see if anyone was freakier than he was. Erwin promised that they could go as long as Levi didn’t show anyone his teeth. They went over well enough at New York City goth clubs, but here in Middle of Nowhere, Texlahoma, Erwin didn’t want to take chances. They hadn’t managed to find the freak show, though they did find a Stonehenge made of classic cars, of which Levi had insisted they take approximately fifty pictures of. Erwin might have regretted buying him a digital camera if he hadn’t been so adorably enamored with the thing. 

“Look, I know we’re somewhere between Oklahoma City and Amarillo, we should just ask the attendant where we need to go from here.”

 _Or,_ Levi signed, _We could go ask the attendant about the freak show._

 _I promise you’ve got them all beat,_ Erwin signed with a smile. Levi sighed and waved his hand as if to say, _Do as you will_.

Erwin made his way inside, map in hand. In the larger cities, no one could ever decipher why he didn’t have a GPS, but he wasn’t about to leave their course up to something that could run out of batteries or lose it’s satellite link. Besides, as Levi loved to remind him, Erwin was old-fashioned. 

_I was born one hundred and fifty years before you,_ he would sign smugly, _And even I can use a smart phone._

Erwin adored him.

But even if the gas station attendants in large cities didn’t know the value of a good old fashioned map, the people in these small, dusty towns certainly did. He spread the map on the counter and asked the attendant for help, and in about five minutes, he had gotten straightened out. He bought a Redbull for Levi and a large, fresh brewed sweet tea for himself, filled the RV up with gas, and climbed back in to the driver’s seat. Levi was forever trying to drive while signing and the results were never what Erwin would categorize as “adequately safe,” therefore, unless he felt like napping, he was the one who drove. 

Levi, who had been slinking around the gas station eyeing strangers and looking for the little desert lizards that had been in abundance around the Used Car Stonehenge, plopped down in the passenger seat and grinned at Erwin. 

_You finally figure it out, old man?_ he signed, slipping off his boots and settling in with his feet on the dash. 

“Yep,” Erwin replied, pulling on his favorite polarized aviator sunglasses and taking a sip of sweet tea. 

“To Amarillo we go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Every single one of you means a lot to me <3


End file.
